:\:^.^&^i 






Library of Congress. 



m 



Chap. 



Shelf.. 






< ^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



{Qe^mAum^'n'^ m^ 




^/ianana 



'tan. 



FORD EXCHANGE, 



/o^S 



\ 




i^^ 





AN ACCOUNT 



Dinner by the Hamilton Club 



Hon. JAMES S. T. STRANAHAN, 



Thursday Evening, December 13, 1888. 



BROOKLYN, - NEW YORK, 

January, 188©. 









46924 




Eaolk Prkss, Brjokltn, N. Y. 



EXPLANATORY. 



The proceedings set forth iu these pages were the 
result of the following correspondence : 

[Committee of the Hamilton Club to Mr. Stranahan.] 

Hamilton Club, \ 

Brooklyn, November 24, 1888. ) 
Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan : 

I)ea7- Si}' — The uiidersigued, representing a large number of 
your friends and fellow members of the Hamilton Club, respect- 
fully request the pleasure of your company at a Dinner to be 
given in your honor, at the Club House, Thursday evening, 
December 13, at 7 o'clock. 

It is the desire of your friends, in a simple and unostentatious 
manner, to declare their appreciation of what you have been able 
to accomplish for the welfare of the city, iu which for so many 
j'ears you have lived an honored and useful life. 

George M. Olcott, Charles H. Hall, 

Alexander E. Orr, S. B. Chittenden, 

W. B. Kendall, Isaac H. Cart, 

Seth Low, Bryan H. Smith, 

Alfred C. Barnes, Benjamin F. Tracy, 

Robert B. Woodward, Willis L. Ogden. 



[Mr. Stranahaa to Committee of the Hamilton Club.] 

Brooklyn, November 26, 1888. 
Messrs. George M. Olcott, A. E.'.Orr and others: 

Oentlemen — I accept with pleasure your invitation to dine 
with you at the Hamilton Club on the evening of December 13. 
Let me assure you that such an expression of regard as you 
extend to me is highly appreciated. 

Respectfully yours, 

J. S. T. Stranahan. 



To the members of the Club, with the foregoing cor- 
respondence, was mailed the appended statement : 

Brooklyn, December 1, 1888. 
The attention of the membeis is respectfully called to the 
accompanying invitation and acceptance. 

Mr. Stranahan is now in his 81st year, and to him is Brooklyn 
indebted for many of the great improvements which we now 
enjoy. 

The Dinner will be served in the Club House, Thursday even- 
ing, December 13, at 7 o'clock. 

If it be your pleasure to attend this Dinner please sign and 
forward the enclo.sed card to office of the Club. The capacity of 
the dining-room is limited to 110. Subscriptions will be restricted 
to members only until the 7th inst. , but they may make appli- 
cation for tickets for friends immediately, and if there are any 
vacancies, seats will be reserved in the order of application. 
Yours respectfully, 

William B. Kendall, 
Willis L. Ogden, 
C. S. Van Wagoner, 
George R. Turnbull, 

Committee on the Dinner. 

The limit of numbers exjjressed in the statement to 
the members was largely exceeded, as the list of names 
shows. This was made possible by the use of the entire 
floor, on which the dining-hall is situated, as one room. 

The account of the banquet, as will be seen, is taken 
from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which printed a full 
stenographic report of the remarks. The comments of 
the public Journals upon the event, with letters from 
friends who could not attend, comjDlete the record, 
which is herein given just as the press, from its varied 
points of view, considered the affair. 

This compilation has been made at the requst of those 
participating on the occasion, so that, in convenient 
form, the history of it might be presented and preserved. 

Brooklyn", January, 1889. 



[From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (report), December 14, 1888.] 

Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan. 



The Hamilton Club Dinner to Our Chief Citizen. 



Ax Occasion Memorable for Tribute and for 
Felicitation— The Eminent Guest's Account 
of His Life and Labors in Brooklyn — 
Addresses by George M. Olcott, R. S. 
Storrs, Alexander McCue, Alfred C. 
Barnes, Setii Low, John B. Woodward, 
Waldo Hutchins and St. Clair McKelway. 

The Dinner of the members of the Hamilton 
Club to the Hon. James S. T. Stranahan occurred 
last night. The event informally divided itself 
into a social gi-eeting of the distinguished guest in 
the parlors of the Club House, before the assem- 
blage in the dining-room into the banquet proper, 
and into the addresses of tribute and felicitation 
which followed. Each event was a marked success. 
The venerable guest of the evening recpiired no 
introduction to those who thronged around him. 
Each had for him a hearty salutation. For each 
he had an apt and courteous acknowledgment. 
Mr. Stranahan never looked, and said he never 
felt, better. A larger assemblage of members and 



c 

friends of the Hamilton hardly ever gathered in 
its halls. If there had been any doubt of the 
abihty of the Committee in charge to make the 
occasion the climacteric one in the history of the 
Club, the representative attendance and the per- 
fection of arrangements removed that doubt. 

The time set for the Dinner was seven o'clock. 
A chart in the library indicated to each guest the 
arrangement of the tables and the position of his 
seat at each. Quite promptly, therefore, the 
places were found, and commendably near to the 
hour named the gentlemen were gathered. The 
tables extended from north to south on the 
line of greatest length of the dining-room. The 
first table was reserved for the President of the 
Club, for the eminent guest of the Club, and 
for those citizens, the speakers, and other gen- 
tlemen who were the guests of the Committee 
of the Dinner. At that table in the center were 
Mr. George ' M. . Olcott, the President of the 
Hamilton Club, on his right being the Hon. 
J. S. T. Stranahan, and on his left General 
John B. Woodward, the present President of 
the Board of Park Commissioners. At the south 
end of the table sat Colonel William Hester, and 
at the north end of it sat Mr. William B. Ken- 
dall. The other gentlemen at the principal table 
were Judge Charles L. Benedict, ex- Judge Alex- 
ander McCue, ex-Mayor Seth Low, the Rev. 
Dr. E. S. Storrs, the Hon. St. Clair McKelway, 



ex-Jiulge B. F. Tracy, and the Kev. Dr. Charles 
H. Hall. 

Among those present were G. M. Olcott, Wil- 
liam B. Kendall, W. L. Ogden, 0. S. Van Wag- 
oner, G. R. Tunibull, F. B. Taylor, Judge Charles 
L. Benedict, W. H. Hiisted, P. Worth, J. S. 
Turner, D. Birdsall, B. H. Smith, J. N. Par- 
tridge, W. H. AVilliams, Clifford S. Middleton, 
J. F. Praeger, J. S. Frothingham, Alexander E. 
Orr, W. K. Paye, Henry Sheldon, F. E. Dodge, 
Edwin Packard, H. C. Collins, Theo. Dreier, 
J. B. Ladd, A. J. Perry, Abbott L. Dow, W. C. 
Kellogg, ex-Judge Alexander McCue, S. M. Par- 
sons, C A. Schieren, John Winslow, T. E. Smith, 
D. P. W. McMulleu, Congressman-elect AV. C. 
Wallace, E. F. Knowlton, Alexander Forman, 
General Henry W. Slocum, J. J. Walton, J. 
Hazelhurst, AVilliam Peet, S. Rowland, R. D. 
Benedict, W. P. 3[asou, L. Switzer, T. C. Long, 
G. P. Stockwell, L. H. Rogers, A. Eraser, H. A. 
Tucker, Jr., J. E. Spencer, W. Y. R. Smith, 
H. B. Moore, W. N. Peak, J. P. Cranford, A. 
Segur, J. G. Johnston, C. A. Hoyt, W. A. White, 
A. B. Bayliss, H. E. Ide, W. S. Packer, W. C. 
. Beecher, J. F. Conkling, St. Clair McKelway, 
J. S. Stanton, H. F. Koepke, Henry Coffin, R. 
Jenkins, C. A. Richardson, F. L. Fames, H. E. 
Nesmith, C. F. Wrede, J. C. Hoagland, F. Allen, 
D. M. Morrison, N. S. Bentley, H. S. Snow, 
D. S. Willard, E. G. Blackford, H. Brown, T. S. 



Moore, W. H. Wallace, F. Birdseye, W. G. Biul- 
ingtoQ, R. B. Woodward, 0. Perry, W. V. Tapper, 
G. W. Mead, G. A. Jabn, 0. W. Bangs, J. H. 
Bates, G. L. Ford, P. L. Ford, J. L. Morgan, Jr., 
W. K. Wilson, T. J. Backus, J. O. Low, John 
Gibb, William R. Porter, E. N. Pigott, Walter S. 
Logan, F. A. Guild, N. D. Putnam, W. A. Put- 
nam, J. AYallace, 0. W. Boweu, 0. A. Moore, 
J. S. Coffin, W. H. Yiegler, J. A. Nichols, C. 
Patterson, H. D. Atwater, E. B. Barllett, T. H. 
Denny, T. E. Wilhams, S. Coffin, H. E. Mtchie, 
W. C. Gardiner, I. H. Gary, C. T. Howard, 
Charles A. Towusend, W. C. Ford, R. H. Turle, 
E. H. Kellogg, J, E. Leech, Benjamin F. Tracy, 
W. C. Sheldon, A. H. Ely, A. H. Van Cott, 
Joshua M. Van Cott, D. W. C. Brown, O. J. 
Wells, W. A. Reed, F. A. Schroeder, and others. 

Before the guests were seated the divine blessing 
on the occasion was invoked by Dr. Storrs, after 
which the gentlemen addressed themselves to the 
excellent menu provided and to the exchanges of 
conversation, which were rendered easy and pleasur- 
able by the skill and knowledge with which the 
congenial grouping of those present had been 
arranged. 

It was 9:15 when the speaking, reported in these 
columns to-da}', began, and quite midnight when it 
closed. President Oleott was both apposite and 
witty in his opening remarks and in his prefatory 
words introducing the speakers of the night. The 



9 

address of Mr. 8traiialiaii was listened to with 
delighted atteution, after the plaudits with which 
bis rising was greeted. He delivered it in admir- 
able voice and manner, and point after point was 
heartily cheered. The ovation which the entire 
afifair signalized to him, under a variety of forms, 
was very marked during the progress of the ex- 
tremely able and interesting words of his response. 
The orators who followed him made Mr. 
Stranahan and Brooklyn their theme, and how 
well they did so their printed words attest. 
Dr. Storrs was never in better form. His 
eloquence was not a surprise. If his incisive 
humor was, it will not be hereafter to those 
to whom he may in that guise reveal himself, 
for he fairly abounded with it at notably apt 
and frequent intervals. He closed what he 
said with the words of dedication to her husband 
which Mrs. Stranahan has employed in her 
recently published volume on the " History of 
French Painting." Their beauty and tender 
truthfulness were made apparent to the hearts 
of all present. 

The flowers which graced the occasion had 
been sent to Mrs. Stranahan, and mid dinner 
a felicitous acknowledgment was received from 
her ;uid read by President Olcott. The 
address of Dr. Storrs covered the entire Brooklyn 
record of Mr. Stranahan. The remarks of Judge 
McCue and General Barnes referred to his 



10 

eminent relations to tlie bridge and the ferries. 
Ex-Mayor Low enlarged on Mr. Stranahan's 
position as a stimulating force in Brooklyn 
life, and wisely wove in an appeal for the muni- 
cipal projects of improvements now under way. 

General Woodward recalled the park record 
of the honored guest of the evening and 
magnified the need of greater park area for 
Brooklyn. The Hon. Waldo Hutchins, Presi- 
dent of the Park Commission of New York, 
paid a tribute to Mr. Stranahan's abilities and 
character. Mr. St. Clair McKelway recounted 
the personal qualities and the perennial yonth- 
fuluess of heart which have made Mr. Stranahan 
alike a marvel of achievement and a splendor 
of example to Brooklyn. The latter speaker's 
incidental allusion to the Hon. Henry R. 
Pierson, now of Albany, who represented 
Brooklyn in the State Senate, when park 
legislation was passed, was greeted with marked 
plaudits, as, indeed, were all the points succes- 
sively made by the orators of the evening. The 
occasion closed, as it began and as it had 
progressed, with cheers for the illustrious 
gentleman whom it honored. Following is a 
report of what was said : 



11 



THE BANQUET OF REASON. 

It was 9:15 wbeu tlie Dinner liad been disposed 
of, and Mr. G. M. Olcott, who officiated as 
cbaiiinan very acceptabl}^, rapped for order. Tbe 
compan}' was supplied witb excellent cigars, and 
settled back to enjoy tbe intellectual part of tbe 
programme. Mr. Olcott said : 

Gentlemen — This occasion may well call up this 
enthusiasm, because we cannot speak of our guest of the 
evening, in whose honor we are assembled, without 
bringing up in thought the whole growth and develop- 
ment of the City of Brooklyn, [Applause.] 1 remember 
a great many years ago — not so many in his estima- 
tion but in mine — in conversation with a business friend 
in New York, for whose opinion I had great respect, 1 
mentioned as an advantage of living on Brooklyn Heights, 
where I did live, rather than uptown in New York, where 
he did (this was before the elevated railroads were built), 
that I could so readily get home from my office. He 
replied : " Yes, you can get to Brooklyn easily enough, 
but the trouble is you are nowhere when you get there." 
[Laughter.] His idea was— and a great many benighted 
New Yorkers still have it — that Brooklyn was a badly 
paved place lying between them and Greenwood 
Cemetery. [Laughter.] That was all they knew of it. 
And the carriage makers, as you all are aware, if they 
wanted to strongly recommend their work as good, used 
to say : ''It will even stand use on Brooklyn streets.'' 
[Laughter.] In those days, as you cannot forget, there 
was but one place of intellectual enjoyment in Brooklyn 



12 

— the Brooklyn Institute — with a weekly course of lec- 
tures, supplemented by an occasional concert, with 
Luther B. Wyman to set us an example of courtly 
grace in handing on lady singers. [Applause.] And 
now look at the change. We have annexed New York 
by that beautiful bridge. We have enabled our friends 
there to cross over and enjoy the delights of Prospect 
Park and the luxury of riding on the boulevard ; and 
these advantages we owe j^^'o^ably more than to any 
other one man, to the energy, ability and foresight of 
J. S. T. Stranahan. [Aj)plause.] I read some time 
ago of a dying man, in California, I believe it was, who 
was asked by the priest whether he forgave all his en- 
emies. He replied that he had none to forgive— he had 
killed them all. [Laughter.] It is a good deal so with 
our friend. He has been called, and not always in 
friendship, the wizard and the magician. But the 
names well fit, and he has lived until a great many of 
those who formerly opposed him now count themselves 
among his friends. One gentleman here, since this 
dinner was spoken of, told me that while Prospect Park 
was being built and he read in the papers of the out- 
rageous sums that were being expended, he felt like join- 
ing in a mob of indignant taxpayers to hang Mr. Stran- 
ahan to a lamp post [laughter], but after riding through 
the park and seeing what a park it was for the city he 
wanted to get up a mob of citizens to get lamjD posts 
enough to melt and make a colossal statue. [Applause.] 
So the parallel between Mr. Stranahan and the late 
lamented gentleman of California is not so far-fetched. 
Indeed, I can share in that feeling, too, because while 
the bridge was being built I had a notion it was an 
awful piece of extravagance. But walking over it morn- 



18 

ing and iiiglit since its completion, the only way I can 
get myself together, I feel almost like paying for it my- 
self. [Laughter.] Vividly appreciating the great 
growth and advantage of the city due to these and other 
works in which our eminent guest has been engaged, I 
ask you to join, standing, in drinking to the health of 
J. S. T. Stranahan. 

The company arose to drink the health of 
Mr. Stranahan and united in singing " For He's 
a Jolly Good Fellow." Then someone tenderly 
incpiired, "What's the matter with Stranahan?" 
The response came at once loudly and unitedly, 
" He's all right !" The ln(iuiring gentleman then 
wanted to know, "Who's all right?" "Strana- 
han," returned all in deafening concert, and loud 
applause followed. 

Mr. Olcott presented Mr. Stranahan, who on 
rising to respond was greeted with three hearty 
cheers. When quiet was restored he spoke as 
follows : 

SPEECH OF MR. STRANAHAN. 

Gentle-MEX — I am here to-night as your guest by 
an invitation addressed to me by a committee repre- 
senting the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn. The source, 
the medium and the special object of the invitation, 
as indicated by the letter, which I received, at once 
commanded my consideration, and awoke within me 
a pleasant sense of gratitude. It is true that 
Brooklyn has been my permanent home for many 
years ; and I assure vou that I have not been 



14 

unobservant of its growth, and, I trust, not an unin- 
terested spectator of that growth. A special cause 
of a business nature brought me to this city in 1844, 
and here I have since continued to reside, now for 
nearly half a century. Here I expect to reside to 
the day of my death. There is no spot on earth 
to which I am so strongly attached as to the City 
of Brooklyn. In this city I have spent the larger 
and more important part of my life ; and if I 
have done anything deserving the attention of my 
fellow citizens, it has been mainly done here. 

The character of your invitation suggests to me 
that on this occasion you will naturally expect some 
words from riiy lips relating not to Brooklyn matters 
in general, but rather to those enter^^rises with which 
I have been particularly identified. This, I am 
persuaded, will by you be deemed a sufficient 
apology for what I am about to say. 

The first of these enterprises is the one that led me 
to select Brooklyn as my place of residence. Having 
acquired an interest in the Atlantic Dock — an under- 
taking then in its infancy — I came here in 1844 in 
the prosecution of that interest. The construction 
of this dock engaged my attention, and for a series 
of years chiefly constituted my business. I had 
associates with me, and though we were all hojDC- 
ful as to the future, we soon discovered that, in 
order to realize our expectations, we must wait for 
that future. Not one of those originally engaged 
with me in this undertaking lived to see the time 
when the Atlantic Dock Company made a dividend 
to its stockholders. Indeed, I was soon left alone, 
with the exception of a most excellent secretary, 



16 

who drew the first dividend check in 18T0, which 
was twenty-six years after I embarked in the work. 
That, gentlemen, was a pretty severe tax on one's 
patience and hope. The facts of the present are that 
the Athmtic Dock is now a completed undertaking. 
Two hundred acres of land reclaimed from tide 
water, and added to the habitable area of this city ; 
a resident population of fifteen thousand persons 
upon the land thus reclaimed ; docks two miles in 
length, and warehouses built thereon with a front- 
age of one mile ; the annual storage of a vast 
commerce brought to this great metropolitan center ; 
an assessed valuation of property that pays one-two- 
hundredth part of the taxes of this city, such is the 
spectacle now presented to the eye of thought. 

The second undertaking with which I have been 
connected, is the construction of Prospect Park. 
The people of this city in 1859, now almost thirty 
years ago, began earnestly to demand legislation for 
the twofold purpose of park improvements and 
parade grounds. The Legislature of the State, in 
response to this demand, appointed a commission 
charged with the duty of selecting suitable sites for 
each of these purposes. This commission, the next 
year, recommended that the necessary grounds be 
taken for two parks. The larger and more im- 
portant of these parks was to be located in close 
connection with the great eastern cemeteries and 
Ridgewood Eeservoir, and to embrace 1,300 acres of 
land. The other park, about one-fifth as large, 
was to be so located as to include the reservoir at 
Prospect Hill, near the site of the present Prospect 
Park. It was urged as an objection to this i)lan 



16 

that a park so far to the east could not properly 
be regarded as the Central Park of the city, and 
that a considerable part of it would, in fact, be 
out of the city and out of the County of Kings. 
The close proximity of the cemeteries with a 
pleasure ground was felt to be objectionable. The 
cost of so large a park in the Eastern District of 
the city, it was thought, would not be properly 
distributed among the people. A compromise was 
finally reached to the effect that the great Ridge- 
wood Park, if ever constructed, should be made a 
local enterprise of the Eastern District, and that 
the proposed park at Prospect Hill should be con- 
sidered an affair of the Western District. From 
this compromise followed the arrangement under 
which the Eastern District is now exempt from 
taxation for the payment of the expenses incurred 
in the construction of Prospect Park. This arrange- 
ment, though faulty, was a necessity at the time. 

It often happens in the course of human affairs 
that it is not always practicable to do exactly what 
should be done, and when this is the fact, then the 
dictate of wisdom is to do the best that can be done 
under existing circumstances. 

The arguments in favor of the construction of a 
park in Brooklyn, as used at the time, and presented 
at public meetings and through the press, as I now 
recall them, touched on a variety of points relating 
to this city. The health, strength, comfort, morality, 
and future wealth of the city would be promoted by 
building a suitable park. Brooklyn, though possess- 
ing certain obvious natural advantages over New 
York, but with less wealth and population, was in 



17 

danger of sinking into the character of a second- 
rate suburb of the greater city. It was also urged 
that the construction of Central Park in New York 
placed Brooklyn at a special disadvantage in bringing 
to itself taxable capital, and that a park was needed 
to overcome this disadvantage. 

The Croton water-works in New York made similar 
works in this city a local necessity to its prosperity 
and growth. These and the like thoughts controlled 
the people in desiring and demanding the construc- 
tion of Prospect Park. The splendid boulevard, 
extending from the park to Coney Island, is an 
appendage thereto, and will, in the end and at no 
distant period, be a part of the City of Brooklyn. 

All the members of the first Board of Park Com- 
missioners, with the single exception of myself, are 
now dead and their bodies sleeping in Greenwood 
Cemetery, and of those who have served with me at 
different times as members of this Board but few remain. 
It gives me great pleasure to say, on this occasion, that 
better and more cordial support no one could exj^ect 
or desire than that which was given to me by my 
associates during my entire administration of park 
affairs. Differences of opinion so rarely occurred that 
in but three instances during the twenty-two years 
of my Presidency of the Board did measures brought 
before the members thereof fail of a unanimous adop- 
tion. My associates were wise and able men, and 
shared with me the responsibility of this great work. 
In this connection allow me to add the fact that 
Prospect Park had the full benefit of the skill and 
experience of the ablest landscape architects in this 

or any other country. 

2 



18 

Looking back, as I now do, upon the past, and 
recalling its facts, I may as well say that my hardest 
task in the administration of park matters consisted 
in keeping the public mind in such active and effect- 
ive sympathy with the undertaking as was needed to 
obtain the necessary legislation and also the funds 
requisite at the proper time and in sufficient amount 
to secure a speedy and economical construction of 
the park. I refer in this general remark to legis- 
lators, partisan leaders, speculating theorists, and 
esj^ecially to a small class of irrepressible men, some- 
times designated as " cranks," who usually have the 
misfortune of thinking that wisdom was born with 
them and that it will surely die with them. The 
last of these classes was always the source of raj 
greatest embarrassment in conducting the construc- 
tion of the park. I am grateful that the work is 
done, and that my special duties in connection there- 
with are ended. The park speaks for itself, and 
will continue to do so in all coming time. I had 
no other interest, in undertaking and prosecuting 
this work, at a very considerable expenditure of time 
and toil and care, than that which is common to me 
and the citizens of Brooklyn ; and if, in this way, I 
have been able to render a good service to the city 
I am heartily glad that the opportunity was afforded 
to me and that the service has been cheerfully 
rendered. I assure you, gentlemen, that I would 
not blot out the record of that service if I could ; 
and I do not at this time see how I could essentially 
change it for the better. That it commands your 
approval is to me a source of great gratification. 

The third undertaking with which I have had 



19 

some connection, is the construction of the East River 
Bridge. I assume that 3^ou will expect at least a 
word from me on this subject. While much might 
be said, the proprieties of the hour dictate that my 
utterance should be brief. 

No candid man who knows the history of this 
bridge can fail to award special honor to William C. 
Kingsley and Henry C. Murphy, both of whom are 
now sleeping in their graves, or to the chief engi- 
neers, the elder and the younger Roebling, the 
former of whom lost his life, and the latter his 
health in a work second to no other of its kind in 
any age. The skill and vigilant care of the assistant 
engineers having the immediate charge of the work 
have attracted the attention and won the admiration 
of every intelligent visitor of the bridge. 

To say that the bridge in the hands of the 
trustees grew in its dimensions, and hence that 
its cost was increased beyond the original estimate, 
is simply to state a familiar fact in tlie history of 
ail great works of a like character. The original 
plan did not contemplate such a structure as the 
one finally built. The height of the bridge was 
increased in obedience to the order of the general 
government, and also its width and strength by the 
direction of the trustees. The bridge as actually 
constructed will support the freight and passenger 
trains of the trunk railways of the country. It 
has two carriage roads instead of one, as first 
intended. The approaches were at first designed to 
be simply iron trestle work, and for tliis the trustees 
substituted massive arches of brick and granite. 
The cables and suspended superstructure are 



20 

composed of steel and not of iron. In a word, 
the bridge as it is now, though costing more than 
the original estimate, is higher, wider and stronger 
than the one proposed in that estimate. It fur- 
nishes an elevated highway wider than Broadway in 
New York between the two cities. 

These changes in the way of imiDrovement abun- 
dantly explain the increase of cost. They were 
needed in order to make the bridge what it is and 
what it should be. Not to have made them would, 
in my judgment, have been a grave mistake. 

Those who took the deepest interest m the East 
Eiver Bridge, some of whom are already gone, will 
soon all pass away. Not one of them will be left. 
The bridge, however, will remain, as generations one 
after another come and retire, scarcely feeling the 
effects of time, as strong after the lapse of centuries 
as it was in the days of its youth. The cables will 
not lose their vigor. The towers will not bend and 
break under their weight. The anchorages will be 
faithful to their trust. The massive arches will 
never collapse. The steel and the granite will not 
rot. Fire will not burn the bridge. The winds of 
heaven will not shake it down. Time and toil will 
not bring to it any fatigue. There it will remain for 
ages, just where human skill placed it, a permanent 
memorial of the enterprise of a bygone period. 
Travelers will study it, the sightseers wonder at it. 
With all my heart I congratulate Brooklyn and 
New York, and especially Brooklyn, upon this 
splendid monument of what it is in the jaower of 
man to accomplish ; and as in res]3ect to Prospect 
Park, so in respect to this bridge. I think with 



21 

pleasure upon tlie fact that I had some share in the 
work of construction. 

Now, gentlemen, I have spoken to you thus 
briefly and from my own knowledge in regard to 
the three subjects that seem germane to the pur- 
poses of this occasion. Indeed, the letter of 
invitation furnished me my text, and if I have 
been compelled to make myself a part of the 
sermon the fault is yours and not mine. I am 
not so prudishly modest that, in telling a story, I 
will dodge myself for the sake of not being seen. 
]\[y mother did not teach me this lesson when I 
was a child, and. I am now too old to learn it. 

There is one other subject upon which, before clos- 
ing these remarks, I think it proper to say a word. 
Brooklyn and New York are distinct municipalities, 
separated from each other by the East River. Is 
this an advantage to either ? I think not. Would 
the consolidation of these two cities into one muni- 
cipal corporation involve any harm to either ? I 
think not. The people in both are essentially the 
same sort of people, living under the same general 
government and the same state government. They 
have the same manners and customs and also 
common industrial, commercial and social interests, 
and one municipal government for local purposes 
would serve them quite as well as two, and at far 
less cost. I know of no reason why this municipal 
distinctness should be continued, other than the fact 
that it now exists, and I confess that I can see no 
good reason why it should exist at all. I may 
be mistaken, but I tliiiik that the people of both 



22 

cities should seek a consolidation of both under the 
title of New York. 

London is London on both sides of the Thames, 
and Paris is Paris on both sides of the Seine. Bridges 
make the connection between these sides in the two 
cities, and neither would gain anything by a division 
into two municipalities. Here, however, we have our 
City of New York on one side of the East River 
and our City of Brooklyn on the other side. So it 
has been in the past, and so, I hope, it will not 
always be in the future. 

The East River Bridge, now added to the ferry 
system, and probably to be succeeded by other similar 
structures, will, as I trust, so affiliate the two cities 
in heart and symjiathy, and so facilitate their mutual 
intercourse that both, without any special court- 
ship on the part of either, will alike ask the 
Legislature of the State to enact the ceremony of a 
municipal marriage. As I cannot doubt, such a 
marriage would be an indissoluble union between 
the two. Each would be so well pleased with the 
other, and each so proud of the other that neither 
would ever seek a divorce. The marriage would be 
for life, and that life would last as long as the 
world lasts. New York and Brooklyn thus united 
and forming the great city of this Western Conti- 
nent, would at once take rank with the largest cities 
known to mankind. The spectacle would be a 
splendid one in the records of city life. Every year 
would add to it greatness and grandeur. The consoli- 
dated city would in itself be an empire of industry, 
wealth and intelligence, and eminently fit to be the 
great metropolitan centre of a country, stretching 



23 

from the Atlantic to the Pncific and from Canada 
to the Gulf of ^[exieo. 

I have one more thought, gentlemen, which, as 
I trust, will not be deemed out of place on this 
occasion. My age forcibly reminds me that with 
me, the earthly things of which I have spoken to 
you, must soon give place to things of a different 
character and a much higher order. It is no 
secret to you, as it is none to me, that before us 
lies a yawning gulf upon which we must all at 
last be launched. Religious faith, with its anchor- 
ages and towers resting upon the solid rock of God 
himself, and that only can bridge that gulf and 
land thought safely on the further shore. Such 
faith is the common necessity of our race. No 
elevation of intelligence can either supersede it or 
do its work. There is no registration for man so 
exalted or so rich in the privileges and immunities 
which it secures and guarantees, as that which 
places his name in " The Lamb's Book of Life." 
May God grant us all a peaceful and happy transit 
from this changing scene to the brighter and better 
world above. 

jNFi'. Straualian's speech was applauded at 
difterent poiuts, and when he resuined his seat 
there was great clapping of hands and waving 
of handkerchiefs and napkins. 



24 

The Chairman next introduced Rev. R. S. 
Storrs, D.D., who was greeted with applause. 
Dr. Storrs spoke as follows : 

SPEECH OF REV. R. S. STORRS, D. D. 

I thank you. Gentlemen, for your extremely kind 
welcome, although I confess that I am a little per- 
plexed with doubt as to whether it is intended for 
me. For, in spite of a great many extremely kind 
and flattering invitations, I have not before attended 
a public dinner for so many years that I have been 
quite uncertain of my own identity, while I have 
been sitting here this evening. I have been sound- 
ing Judge McCue, to find out whether it was really 
I, or whether somebody else had got into my coat, 
trousers and boots ; and I am not quite sure now 
that it is not the other man, and that he should 
return thanks. But I am — that is, if it is I — ex- 
tremely glad to be here this evening. I am glad 
to see the beautiful, ample, elegant interior of this 
building, which I have never seen before, though 
I pass it so often in my daily walks, and though 
•in it I know that so many of my friends find a 
pleasant half-home when any necessity turns them 
hither, as well as, of course, a great many delightful 
hours with one another and with others when 
they are at leisure. I was very much interested, 
at the beginning, in the establishment of this Club, 
and knew something of it when it was in its 
modest quarters on the corner of Joralemon street ; 
and I am extremely glad this evening to see tlie 
evidences all around me of its growth and prosperity; 



25 

and I trust tluit its prosperity and power will con- 
tinually increase in the years to come. [Applause.] 
I am certainly extremely glad to join with you 
this evening in offering this tribute of esteem and 
• admiration and honor to him who is the principal 
guest on this occasion. [Applause.] In fact, Gentle- 
men, 1 have been moved to think, for a good while, 
that it would be better if we should show our senti- 
ments of confidence and honor toward those who 
are pre-eminent among us, more freely and more 
frequently than we do. [Good! Good!] We live 
all the time in a kind of critical and censorious 
atmosphere. The papers are always good natured. 
[Applause.] They never say hard things about any- 
body. [Laughter.] But we private citizens are 
sometimes in the way, perhaps even here, of express- 
ing ourselves in sharp comment on those from whom 
we differ, and yet for whom we have sincere esteem 
and respect. Well, no honorable man wants to be 
flattered; but every man likes a certain degree of 
appreciation, if he has done anything to deserve it. 
And his faculties work better in an atmosphere of 
that sort. [Applause.] The sunshine makes the 
flowers bloom brighter, makes the trees bourgeon, and 
expand their branches. And I do wish that there 
were more of this spirit of common regard, of es- 
teem, of affectionate honor, familiarly expressed by 
us toward those who have been our eminent leaders, 
as this man has been. [Applause.] I think it would 
be well for all of us now and then to bring some- 
thing of the golden light of the sunset, after the 
orb has descended below the horizon, into the after- 
noon sky of those whom we love. [Applause.] 



26 

I am a contemporary of Mr. Stranaliau, although 
he got ahead of me in the matter of being born. 
[Laughter.] He came upon the planet twelve or 
thirteen years before I did, and I have never been 
able to catch up. But I tried to diminish the dis- 
tance, as Randolph said when pursuing the man 
who was trying to get away from him, for I came 
to Brooklyn in 1846, while he came in 1844, two years 
before. And so I have watched his work, and have 
seen these things which he has referred to, from the 
root upward, A great many things he has not 
referred to. For example, he has not spoken of his 
connection with the War Fund Committee, in our 
critical time. [Applause.] He has not spoken of 
his connection with a great many of our institutions; 
witli the Atheneum, which has started many other 
things in this city ; with the libraries and galleries 
which have made the city attractive and beautiful. 
He has not spoken of his connection with the Ferry 
Company, of which he is the president. But he 
has spoken of three things. Well, they are great 
tilings ; and I cannot help thinking how much came 
into this City of Brooklyn when Mr. Stranahan 
brought his wife and children here, forty-four years 
ago. How much came with this head, and with this 
will ; and as much with the will as in the head ! 
Those Atlantic Docks, of which he has spoken, 
representing the noblest part of the business of 
Brooklyn, and representing great business sagacity 
and patience on his part, and on the part of those 
associated with him. Yonder bridge, which opens 
for the citizens of Brooklyn a highway to the uni- 
verse ; which takes us out of the old isolation, and 



21 

makes our city iinmediutely a part, wlietlior inuiii- 
cipally annexed in form or not, of tlie great City 
of New York, and facilitates our intercourse with 
all the world ; illustrating the free and far-sighted 
large-mindedness of the man [applause], and of all 
the other men who were associated with him in 
the enterprise, and who co-operated with him so 
gladly and so intelligently. 

And then, Prospect Park ! — illustrating his love of 
beauty, his appreciation of its necessity and benefit 
in tlie civilization of our city, and representing that 
ornamentation of the great growing town which it pre- 
eminently needed, and which it is to need for all time 
to come. Of these three great enterprises of which 
he spoke, I don't know but the park is his particular 
pet and pride. It ought to be. He gave twenty-two 
years of his life to that park, I will not say the best 
years of his life, because the years that went before 
were, perhaps, just as good ; and I don't know but 
the years that have come after have been as rich, and 
ripe, and mellow, and noble, as any that went before 
them, or as any that may still come after them. But 
he gaA^e twenty-two years of the best of his life to that 
work ; and those of us who saw the work while it was 
going on know that he watched it with the solicitude 
with which a mother watches her sleeping babe. 
There was hardly a tree removed, or a tree planted, 
hardly a drive or a walk laid out, or a bit of shrub- 
bery planted here or there, to which his personal 
attention was not given. It is all very well for him 
to say that they had the best landscape architects in 
the world, but they could not have done anything 
without him. It is very well for him to say that 



28 

there were wise and able men associated with 
him, and they were wise ; and they showed that 
they were wise and able by always making their 
agreement with him unanimous. [Applause.] I 
don't know what he would have done if he had had 
that other park of 1,300 acres ! 

Sir Joshua Reynolds said of Rubens, if I remember 
aright, that his genius always expanded with his can- 
vas, his best pictures being uniformly his largest. We 
can see what Mr. Stranahan did with 550 acres : 
creating beauty and harmony, and crowning the hills 
with the ornament which art has placed upon 
them ; taking that rough, rocky, hilly waste, as we 
remember it, and making it the pleasure-ground of 
hundreds of thousands for all time to come ; taking 
that narrow, winding country road, if there was any 
there, which I doubt, and converting it into the 
magnificent broad boulevard, fronting the sea on 
one side and the park on the other, which gives to 
Brooklyn fame in the country, and, in a degree, fame 
in the world ! What a tremendous work it was to 
do ! I think if he had had the other 1,300 acres 
under his care we should have had a succession of 
parks that would have astonished the continent. 

Now this is his monument. [Applause. ] People say, 
not infrequently, " By and by we must put a statue 
of Mr. Stranahan in Prospect Park." Of course we 
must. But I don't see why we need to wait. We 
Americans do wait. Perhaps it is in the English 
blood. The French don't. Generally, here, men are 
dead before we raise statues to them. We have to be 
careful, we think, like the English woman who was 
called up before the judge, her husband having com- 



29 

mitted suicide. The judge said to her, '' You were the 
first person who saw him hanging?" "Yes." "AVhat 
did you do?" "'•Didn't do anything." "Didn't do 
anything? Why didn't you cut him down?" "Cut 
him down, Judge ?" repeated the woman. "Why, he 
wasn't dead!" [Great laughter.] Now, why not 
start here to-night, with tliis very live man in front 
of us, and begin this business of the statue ? There 
are enough here to begin this work, and carry it to 
success. I am the most wretched solicitor that ever 
was in the world, with very little tact and no experi- 
ence [laughter], but I know that we could carry that 
to absolute and triumphant success within thirty days. 
[Sure.] So let us not wait to put up marble or 
bronze after our dear and honored friend has gone 
from among us, and we do not see him any more I 
But I rejoice to remember that whatever happens, 
bronze or no bronze, marble or no marble, he can 
take unto himself, standing at any point in Prospect 
Park, the Avords which Christopher Wren wrote on 
the frieze of St. Paul: "If you seek his monument, 
look around you!" [Great applause.] 

I have taught him some lessons, perhaps ; but he 
has certainly taught me one lesson worth remembering 
by all of us : it is, what a man in private station 
can do, if he intelligently sets to work to do it. We 
are accustomed to think that we must rely upon 
those who are in official station. Official station may 
not put a man on a pedestal at all, but in a pillory. 
It may not only not give him any power to work more 
effectively than before, but may diminisli his power. 
A man in official station in any of our cities has to 
consult, as far as I can discover, those with him in 



30 

sympathy ; the contrary opinion of others. And if 
there be any circle of government around him to con- 
trol him, which there often is, he has then so to yield to 
others that he can hardly initiate and intrepidly carry 
forward to success great enterjjrises. We all remem- 
ber what was said of New York in the time of the late 
lamented Mr. Tweed, that New York City was like 
the sun in an annular eclipse— nothing visible but the 
ring. [Laughter.] There have been other cities, since, 
of which that was true : although I trust it will never 
be true of this City of Brooklyn. But here is a man 
who has never occupied a public office, of any promi- 
nence, except in a post which was made necessary by 
his own initiatory enterprise. He was an alderman 
once, I know. He couldn't help it, and it is so long ago 
that it ought not to be laid up against him. [Laugh- 
ter and applause.] He was a candidate for Mayor 
once, and I voted for him. But the other party were 
too many for us. But with those exceptions, as I 
have stated, he has held no public office. He has 
been a Commissioner of the Bridge, as one of the 
earliest and most efficient promoters of that great 
enterprise. But it has been as a private citizen that 
he has undertaken and carried forward these magnifi- 
cent enterprises. I say that here is a lesson for every 
one. He has given us this j^ark, which even those 
whom the Mayor has perhaps incautiously and un- 
wisely put in charge of it, under the presidency of 
General Woodward, cannot seriously injure. I apply 
the ''incautious" and ''unwise" to those who are 
under General Woodward, of whom I happen to be 
one, but never to him ! 

Now, I hold it a great lesson that a man in simply 



31 

a private station can start upon a grand work for 
a great city, and carry it to success and to accom- 
plisKnient in his own time I But then lie has taught 
me, at any rate, the lesson of patience ; patience, and 
quietness of spirit, in the midst of many things cal- 
culated to disturb the spirit. Undoubtedly he has 
had his disappointments ; hopes which he justly and 
reasonably entertained he has been unable to carry 
to success ; projects dear to his mind have failed to be 
realized. And he has been subjected to as severe 
criticism, at different times, as any man among us ; 
called, as we know, a wizard and a magician ; accused 
of working in the dark, mining subterraneously ; 
accused of doing I know not what all ; perhaps 
accused of putting money in his own pocket, but 
upon the whole I think that that charge has never 
been started. But he has been as quiet in it all as 
if every one spoke well of him. It has been a noble 
example which he has given. I have to learn a lesson 
in that direction myself. After Ave have been thor- 
oughly trounced in some public fashion by some man, 
or possibly by a newspaper, we do not exactly like it. 
We feel inclined to sympathize with the schoolboy 
who was walking home rather stifHy, as though he 
had lately had some sore experience. Meeting a sports- 
man who said to him, " Is there any game around 
here?" he replied, ''There are no bears, or wood- 
chucks, but there's the schoolmaster over there ; you 
might go over and take a pop at him, it would be 
an advantage to the community." [Laughter and 
applause.] Well, I don't know how much strife of 
the spirit our dear and honored friend has had 
within himself, but I know that he has never 



32 

expressed in public any uneasiness at any attacks 
made upon him. There is a word you rarely see in 
English. The French have it, the Spaniards have it, 
and the Italians have it : a word of Latin derivation — 
longanimity. It is the temper that waits patiently, 
that expects to be vindicated in the result, that 
silently endures accusation, to be at last crowned 
with victory. That we have in this man. I honor 
him for it ; and I have tried to learn the lesson from 
him. And then, an inventive and heroic public 
spirit has been always manifest in him ; and that. 
Gentlemen, is what more than anything else we need 
for our civic prosperity. 

Here are two Brooklyns. One is the Brooklyn of 
convenience ; the Brooklyn of streets, and shops, and 
markets, and churches, and schools, and pleasant 
homes. Here is another Brooklyn, which has come 
into existence and appearance ; it is the Brooklyn of 
art and culture, which makes the city attractive to 
those who desire to live on the higher plane of largest 
life ; who would fill the atmosphere of society here 
with a welcome to the noble, the true, and the beauti- 
ful, in learning and in art. And we must have the 
inventive faculty, the intrepid public spirit which 
works to great ends, to hasten the coming of that 
nobler, and brighter, and more fascinating Brooklyn ; 
that so this city may not only remain happy and lovely, 
as it has been, but may become the haiapiest and 
loveliest in the country — on the continent. We want 
that public spirit which flinches at no obstacle; ready 
to devise wise plans, to be an inventor of good things, 
and then heroically to accomplish those plans and 
carry them into perfect execution. We want this 



33 

spirit ill private citizens, not merely in public officials. 
Without it our dwellings are but hardened mud, and 
our marble buildings may be sepulchres of decaying 
life. But when we have this, we can make the city 
glorious and beautiful— a very Queen in the Nation, 
whose power and influence shall go throughout the 
land. Now, who will follow these men who liave 
gone before, in this (|uality of heroic and inventive 
public spirit ? I saw, just before I came here, some 
words written concerning our friend, by one who is 
dear to him— the dedication of a volume, elaborate, 
learned, rich, on the history of French Art. And it 
struck me that it expressed my own feeling precisely. 
I count it an honor and a pleasure of my life to have 
been so many years here associated, on terms of 
unbroken confidence and fellowship, with one of wliom 
these words could be written: "To my Husband: in 
honor of the rare qualities of his service to others, 
through his ready perception of the rights of kinship, 
citizenship, and humanity." [Great applause.] 

ObairmaD Olcott — A paper has just beeu sent 
up to me which reads : 

Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that 
a bridge to be called the Stranahan Bridge should 
be built from the foot of Broadway, New York, to 
Governor's Island and thence to Brooklyn, which 
bridge shall not be less in height and general effective 
sufficiency than the now existing New York and 
Brooklyn iiridge. 



I do not know who sent it. One advantage 
to the Club in honoring one who is still hale 



'is 

3 



34 

and hearty is that it lias brouglit out some 
members who do not come to the Ohib so often 
as I would lil^e to see them. Among them is 
Judge Alexander McOue. [Applause.] I ask him 
now to say something to us. 

Judge McOue had a fine reception, and, wait- 
ing until the applause subsided, he made these 
remarks : 

REMARKS OF JUDGE McCUE. 

I wish, gentlemen, I could offer you anything that 
would be worthy of the occasion, l)ut after the address 
that has been delivered by our distinguished guest, 
and tlie remarks of Dr. Storrs, I do not think I 
could interest you. I -was very glad to be invited 
to come here, because, although I have been a mem- 
ber of the Hamilton Club, this is the first time I 
have ever visited the Club. I came, too, because I 
have a very great respect for the distinguished gen- 
tleman who is your guest. I have known him for a 
great many years. I do not think I have known him 
eighty years, or eighty-one years, but I have known 
him since he commenced the building of the Atlantic 
Dock— about that time. I knew him well during 
the building of the bridge, and while it is true that 
Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Murphy were strong men in 
the building of the bridge — indeed, Mr. Kingsley was 
really the originator, and Mr. Murphy was the wise 
man who directed the legislation through which the 
bridge was accomplished — still, after all, I know that 
Mr. Stranahan was really the main man there. He 



35 

was tlie Chairmaii of the Executive Committee. He 
was the man who suggested how to raise the money. 
He suggested everything that was possible for tlie 
purpose of making everything smootli and pleasant, 
and we had some very troublous times when the 
bridge was building. He was really the man who 
was entitled to a great deal of the credit for that. 

Of course, there are many men in the City of 
Brooklyn who have been very important figures in 
the different works to which Mr. Stranahan has 
referred. Of course, he could not do it alone. He 
has had to have legislation ; he has had to have 
help in the cities of Brooklyn and New York, but 
he has always been a very strong and reliable man, 
and Avhile I can give credit to other gentlemen who 
have contributed in these works, I must say of Mr. 
.Stranahan he was the prudent man all the time. 
He was a sagacious man. He was the man who 
throw oil on the troubled waters. Without such a 
man a great many of the things spoken of to-night 
would not have been accomplished. 

Now, as to the suggestion that there be a statue 
of Mr. Stranahan erected, I think it is a good one, 
and I recommend that it be taken up actively so 
that we may experience the gratification of having 
a representation of Mr. Stranahan in his favorite 
place in the Park. May it be many years before 
he is taken away from us. 

The Oliairnian — Another of our menil)L'i\s who 
does not come in so often as we would like, 
although more often than Judge McCue, has 



36 

just entered — the Eev. Dr. Charles H. Hall. 
We will now hear from Dr. Hall. 

There was loud hand clapping mingled with 
cheering at the introduction of the popular and 
eloquent divine. Dr. Hall surveyed the enthusi- 
astic company and then proceeded to say these 
things : 

SPEECH OF REV. DR. HALL. 

Dr. Storrs is certainly as unfair a man as I know. 
I wonld have taken about the same line of thought, 
though without so much embellishment, and I would 
certainly have repeated what he has said, in a less 
ornate form. I am among the younger members 
of Brooklyn. I have been here some twenty 
years, and, finding it good enough for me, I have 
stuck to it ever since and propose to do so for 
some time to come. The old saying of the classics 
is that we can count no man happy till he dies. 
I think we .can count Mr. Stranahan happy to- 
night. I have been watching his countenance with 
affectionate interest. ' All of his fellow citizens have 
a desire to express for him, while he is still in the 
bloom of youth, the affectionate reverence we all 
have for him. The works he has done for the city 
have brought him into a position among us that 
teaches mo a lesson that has not been mentioned, 
and that is, that it is very often that the best 
part of a man's life to be roundly abused ; and 
that that abuse is certain to come to a man when- 
ever he gets to a point where he thinks to amount 
to anything. 



37 

And iu looking back over life myself I have great 
gratitude now toward those who have helped me to 
understand myself a little better than I did when 
as a young man I came across these Brooklyn 
Heights, vastly ditferent then from now ; in front 
of Trinity Church, where the old sleepers then lay 
— 1 don't mean sleepers above the platform, but 
where the sleepers lay as it was being built. To 
think of those days and Brooklyn as it then was, 
a suburb of New York, with a cow-path marking 
the future line of Fulton street ; the lines of Mon- 
tague street, then not a street but a waste, and 
no houses till we got down to Harrison street. 
But it is not my desire to speak at any length to- 
night. 

I concur most heartily in what has been said 
concerning Mr. Stranahan. The enterprise which he 
has carried out and his labors through the storms 
he has encountered certainly have made for him to- 
night a very proud record, and I shall pay Dr. 
Storrs the com})liment of not soaring any higher 
than to express to Mr. Stranahan the judgment of 
all those whose opinion is of any value. 

The Chairman — The gentlemen who got up 
this Dinner have done faithful work. While 
they have all done their share, I think to Mr. 
Willis L. Ogden belongs a good deal of credit. 
I believe it was at Ids suggestion the large 
tloral decoration was sent down, before we com- 
menced speaking, to Mrs. Stranahan. I have 
just received this in reply (reading) : 



38 

To the members of the Hamilton Club partici- 
pating in the Dinner in honor of her husband, Mrs. 
Stranahan sends thanks for the fact that though, 
owing to circumstances beyond her control, she is 
absent, she is not forgotten ; also, that to her, 
indeed, are accorded the flowers of the feast : the 
visible symbol, if not, possibly, by some occult force, 
the very materialization, of its wit and reason. 

The Chairman — No discussion of any subject 
connected with the bridge would be complete 
without hearing from our worthy member, Gen- 
eral A. 0. Barnes. 

SPEECH OF GENERAL A. C. BARNES. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen — I think there 
can be no fitter occasion or subject for one of these 
Hamilton symposia than the one we have to-night. 
The serene gentleman who sits by your side, sir, 
seems to jjrovoke eulogium. And why may he not 
be received by this company ? For we all acknowl- 
edge him to be the Abraham of our civic faith, 
the Nestor of our municipal policy, and, if you 
please, the DeLesseps of our metropolitan achieve- 
ment. To-night, I think we may add, the Samuel 
who prophesied the union of our two cities. All 
of these titles he has earned right here in Brooklyn, 
and while he is still younger than any of the 
original worthies to whom I have ventured to com- 
pare him, when Mr. Stranahan is full grown I 
think we shall be surprised at what he will 
accomplish. At all events, it is a great pleasure to 



39 

us to be here to meet him and to express to him 
our cordial feelings, and I for one am proud to 
have the opportunity to lift up my voice in that 
line. 

I will endeavor to address myself, sir, as you have 
suggested, to that phase of our friend's career with 
which I was familiar for several years personally, 
namely, his labors in connection with the great 
bridge. Before you and I, sir, saw the magnifi- 
cent span, or perhaps even conceived it, it already 
existed in the busy mind and the determined pur- 
pose of a very few men. And many — I may say 
the most of these — were still with us at the time 
when I entered the Bridge Board a youthful and 
very modest member in 1879. The heat and burden 
of the day at that time were past practically. The 
uncertainties and difficulties which at first gathered 
about the undertaking hail been haj^pily overcome, 
and it only remained to carry on the plans of the 
great architect with the abundant means provided 
by an ap])reciative community and to complete the 
structure. Of those veterans whom I met at that 
propitious time in the old office of the bridge — 
many of you may remember it was over the coal 
yard at Fulton Ferry— of those veterans some of 
the greatest, Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Murphy and 
Mr. Prentice, have passed away. Mr. Marshall and 
General Slocum and Mr. Stranahan remained to see 
the 1)ridge opened for traffic and then resigned 
their charge. We younger men who now control the 
details of the management have little part or lot in 
the glories of that older day. The builders of the 
Pyramids were greater than those who occupied the 



40 

chambers they had built. The latter were Pharaohs, 
to be sure. They are dignified, but dead — very dead. 
It is no reflection, however, upon the frequent 
failures of the present potentates of the bridge to 
obtain a quorum. [Laughter.] 

Although nearly ten years have elapsed, I still 
recall vividly the scenes which I witnessed when 
those old giants of administration were with us. 
Each of them excelled in some department of 
executive ability, but none of them, I may safely say 
without depreciation to any — none were so masterful 
in debate as our friend Mr. Stranahan. He could 
argue like a lawyer. He was very effective in 
pleading, and upon occasion he could threaten like 
Ajax himself. On his persuasive eloquence all 
objections, all obstacles and all obstructions were 
swept away, and his measures prevailed almost inva- 
riably, as has been here recited to-night. One great 
beauty of his forensic victories was that, so far as 
I know, they never left a sting behind them, and 
those who had most vehemently opposed him were 
always the first to acknowledge the wisdom of the 
decision that had been in a sense thrust down their 
throats. The last of these great battles in which 
our friend particijiated was the battle royal of the 
ferries. Mr. Stranahan has always been a sort — as 
you know l>y the sketches that we have all listened 
to, if you do not know by your own observation — 
has always been a sort of high commissioner of 
immigration for Brooklyn. Before the Bridge days 
he was a ferry man, a very devoted ferry man. 
In fact, I may say he was the St. Christopher of 



41 

tlio East River, the patient bearer of all comers to 
our shores. Only I think if he could have so 
arranged it he would have had the Ijoats run but 
one way [laughter], so that no one could escape 
from this Eldorado of homes when once landed, 
and to those eager, arriving throngs he would have 
had Palinurus, the pilot, proclaim from his point 
of vantage as the boat entered the dock: "Brook- 
lyn! Unlimited time for refreshments! [Laughter.] 
Next and last station. Greenwood!" [Laughter.] 

Well, when the bridge was finished it was Chris- 
topher Stranahan who had the courage, ignoring 
because he scorned to receive the charge of interested 
motives, to stand up in the Bridge Board and 
demand that the bridge should not enter iiito a 
ruinous competition with the ferries. He brought to 
his aid all the resources of sentiment, of equity and 
of policy. He depicted those faithful servants which 
had brought to Brooklyn its already vast population, 
and pleaded that they should not be deprived of 
their occupation, because another medium of com- 
munication had arisen for service by their side. 
Then in common justice he urged that the private 
investments in the ferries made in good faith had 
a right to protection from public assault, and, lastly 
and chiefly, he insisted upon it as the highest public 
policy that Brooklyn should foster every means and 
every form of service which would make her borders 
most convenient and most accessible at the greatest 
number of points to the greatest number of people. 
"If you destroy the ferries," he said, "you will 
depopulate South Brooklyn and the grass will grow 



42 

in the WtiUabout, and thousands of people who live 
below the bridge termini or do business below the 
bridge termini will rise up and call you — anything 
but blessed." And so he said to his colleagues: "Gen- 
tlemen, this won't do. We not only need tlie bridge 
in Brooklyn, but we need the ferries, too." [Ap- 
plause.] And so, gentlemen, it comes to jmss we 
have them both and all to the present day. And 
so we see that " grand old man " — for he fairly 
shares the title with the English statesman, whom 
in many points he resembles [applause] — we see him 
looming in the history of the bridge, even as the 
Brooklyn tower looms above the shifting tide. His 
memory, whether you erect to him a statue or not, 
will be as imperishable as that granite pile. 

It has been often whispered, and more than once 
before to-night spoken of aloud, that it would be a 
great thing for both cities if they could be united 
under one corporation. Reflection along that line 
of thought makes it easy to fancy those two 
mighty bridge towers, representing on the one hand 
the inspired engineering of Eoebling, and on the 
other the faithful trustee Stranahan, swinging 
between them the cradle of the future consolidated 
metropolis. [Loud applause.] 

The Obairmau — We have heard from the 
park side; we have heard from the bridge side, 
and, to make the story complete, we want to 
bear from the side of the city as well ; aud 
who can speak to us so well as the Hon. Setb 
Low! 



43 

The luiiulsome ex-Mayor arose, amid iimch 
applause, to respoud. This was what he said : 

SPEECH OF EX-MAYOR SETH LOW. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — It luis been to 
me a great pleasure to take part in this Dinner 
given in honor of Mr. 8tranahan. 1 am sincerely 
glad to have this opportunity to lay my tribute of 
appreciation at Mr. Stranahan's feet for the value 
of his services and life in oui- midst. I may not 
speak altogether from the standpoint of a contem- 
porary, although I made my own appearance in 
Brooklyn oidy six years after Mr. Stranahan [laugh- 
ter], and only four years after Dr. Storrs, But if 
I speak for a younger generation, I trust that it 
will detract nothing from the satisfaction of our 
guest to know that his life here is treasured and 
respected and honored by those who are so much 
younger than he. There is one point in connection 
with his life that it seems to me our attention has 
not yet been called to, that is well worthy of nuirk. 
There may be some good cause which has asked for 
help in tlie City of Brooklyn since Mr. Stranahan 
has been a citizen of Brooklyn Avhich did not 
receive his help, but if there be such a cause it 
never has been my fortune to lioar of it. [Ap- 
plause.] 

I think there is no institution calculated to make 
Bro(jklyn a pleasanter place to live in, a place offer- 
ing more to those who are dwelling here, that has 
ever appealed to Mr. Stranahan without meeting a 
cordial and glad response. Some men, you know, 



44 

only take an interest in tliose things which they 
themselves originate. Mr. Stranahan never has been 
such a one. While inventive in the best sense, as Dr. 
Storrs has said, for the good of Brooklyn, he has 
never withheld his co-operation, so far as my knowl- 
edge extends, from any good enterprise desired by 
others. That quality entitles him, as I conceive, to 
high honor. Mr. Stranahan has been from the 
beginning one of that small group of worthies of 
whom it used to be said that they took the happy 
and fortunate Brooklynite on the other bank of the 
river and brought him across the stream ; they 
then received him in the cars of the Brooklyn City 
Kailroad and carried him whither he would; they 
then offered him amusement in the Academy of 
Music, instruction in the Mercantile, now the 
Brooklyn Library, the resources of wisdom in the 
Historical Society, and finally a resting place, as 
General Barnes has said, in Greenwood. It has 
been said slightingly sometimes — sometimes as a 
jest. But it all covers service — service for the good 
of his fellow citizens. 

1 sometimes have thought it was rather charac- 
teristic of Mr. Stranahan that from his high point 
upon the bridge he has been able to look down 
upon his colleagues in the ferry and say, as he 
might say if he please, "I told you so!" His 
prophetic faith in the complete success of the 
bridge led him, I think, with more steady assur- 
ance than any of his colleagues to believe that it 
would profoundly affect the ferry system of Brooklyn, 
He has lived to see his faith justified completely. 
But, as has been said, Mr. Stranahan's chiefest 



45 

memorial in the minds and hearts of the people 
of Brooklyn is the Prospect Park. The old Koman 
poet said, yon know, when he committed his songs 
to the leaves of literature, " I have erected a 
monument more enduring than brass." Mr. Stran- 
ahan has committed his fame to the songs of the 
forest leaves. It may be said that the grass withers 
and the flowers fade, but it is also true that the 
grass withers only to spring up again in the Sjiring 
with a new verdure, and the flowers fade only to 
bloom once more. So, I believe, it will be in 
regard to Mr. Stranahan's fame in connection with 
our beautiful park. As long as the flowers, the 
grass and the trees continue to delight our jieojjle, 
so long the people will hold his name in grateful 
remembrance. [Applause. ] 

But there is another matter in connection with 
the park and the bridge that I think calls for a 
word of notice. Dr. Storrs spoke of tlie inventive 
policy, of the foresight of those days. He spoke of 
the heroic persistence with which those works then 
planned were carried out. He did not speak of 
the immense faith in Brooklyn which marked the 
devising of the park at the time when it was begun. 
It is easy enough for us to-day, a city of 800,000 
people, to say that Prospect Park is only such a 
park as we ought to have ; but I imagine it took 
immense courage, gentlemen, twenty-eight years ago, 
when Brooklyn was a city less than one-third of its 
present size, to believe she was capable financially 
of carrying that work and her share of the Brooklyn 
Bridge through to complete success. It is true 
that when the panic struck the citv in 1873 it 



46 

brought everything to a standstill, just as it did 
many another enterprise the land over. For ten years 
and more the city was obliged to pursue a policy 
entirely the opposite of that which had ruled before. 
She was obliged, under every administration, to take 
in sail in every direction, to throw overboard what 
could be spared, and to shape her course with refer- 
ence simply to carrying successfully the load that 
those early days had placed upon her. But the 
faith which those gentlemen had in Brooklyn was 
abundantly justified. She has come through it 
triumphantly. She carries her park and her bridge 
to-day with an ease that makes us all unconscious 
that she carries it. 

Our debt to-day, our net debt, the first of this 
year, was more than $6,000,000 less than it was 
when it was my fortune to be elected Mayor, and 
in those six years a city larger than Eochester has 
been added to the Brooklyn of that day. I want 
to ask for the present time some of that confidence 
in the power and capacity of Brooklyn that marked 
the earlier period. I want to ask for our present 
Mayor the support of the people of Brooklyn in 
the large plans for our future that he is asking us 
to consider. [Applause.] I believe he is absolutely 
right in his belief that the City of Brooklyn as 
she is circumstanced now — for mind you, with the 
settlement of the arrears problem the whole condition 
of Brooklyn's finances has been changed — I believe 
the Mayor is absolutely right in his contention that 
Brooklyn can better afford to borrow money at 2| 
per cent, interest for the wholesale repaving of our 



47 

streets than by declining to do so, to tax ourselves 
heavily for a comparatively small improvement, and to 
go without the large impetus to our future growth 
that would come from such a system of well paved 
thoroughfares as he has suggested. [Applause.] 

I think the experience of Berlin, gentlemen, is 
to the point. In 1870, or thereabouts, it was one 
of the worst paved cities of Europe. They began 
then to repave it, and they tried to do it through 
the annual tax levy. They discovered, after a year 
or two, that it would take forty years to repave 
Berlin at the rate at which they could tax them- 
selves. They therefore borrowed 14,000,000 from 
the Imperial Government and repaved Berlin, and 
made it in ten years one of the best paved cities 
of Europe. Now, I ask you, if the Brooklyn of 
267,000 people could devise and carry through to 
success the Prospect Park, and a little later could 
bear two-thirds of the burden of the Brooklyn Bridge, 
whether the present Brooklyn of 800,000 people pro- 
poses to flinch before a proposition of this kind, 
bearing upon its surface, as it seems to me, every 
mark that entitles it to support. I think the city 
is to be congratulated that we have reached once 
more the point at which the enthusiastic believer in 
Brooklyn can, as Dr. Storrs said, devise and carry 
forward works for the future. 

Then, Brooklyn has reached in another respect a 
point that Mr. Stranahan, I am sure, has long 
hoped for, and which some of us have sometimes 
thought might never come. Men of wealth and 
power in the city have begun to do largely out of 



48 

their own means for the honor of the city. The 
Adeljihi Academy has been the recipient of splendid 
gifts from one of our fellow citizens. [Applause.] 
The same liberal heart and hand have erected the 
Pratt Institute [applause], which is calculated, in 
my judgment, not merely to do a beneficent work in 
Brooklyn, but to add honor to the name of Brook- 
lyn all over the Union. Another of our fellow citi- 
zens has erected the Hoagland Laboratory [ajiplause], 
and there he proposes, if his hopes are borne out, 
as I am sure they will be, that the study of the 
human body shall be made with so much of skill 
and patience and research that the name of Brook- 
lyn will be written upon the medical and scientific 
annals of the country in imperishable letters. 

Gentlemen, these are great things to be thankful 
for, and they are partly due to the guest of the 
evening and to the other men who, twenty-five or 
thirty years ago, believed largely in Brooklyn. 
They believed, and therefore we have the bridge and 
the park, and because we have those things, these, 
their successors, are willing to do things for Brook- 
lyn of the kind to which I have alluded. Now, 
we need another thing in Brooklyn. We need a 
public library. I do hope that before many years 
go over our heads, either some munificent individual, 
or private citizens co-operating with the city, will 
take hold of the Brooklyn Library and make it 
free. [Applause.] It is not possible, it sems to 
me, to overestimate the importance of the public 
library in the education of the masses of the people, 
according to modern methods. If any of you know 



49 

how the university extension scheme has worked 
in Enghmd ; if you know that in connection with 
the chisses of the Chautauquii T^iterary and Scien- 
tific Circle there are a Imndred thousand students 
reading all over this broad land in their homes, 
and reading under intelligent direction and advice, 
you must appreciate how important it is that those 
who want so to read should have the means at 
their disposal. A great city like Brooklyn needs 
a public library. I ])elieve we never shall be the 
city we ought to be until we have it. I bespeak 
of those who are in this room that we take that 
up as one thing to speak for and to struggle 
for until we add it to the other attractions of this 
great city. 

Now, gentlemen, have I wandered far afield ? I 
think not, because we are standing in the presence 
of Mr. Stranahan, whose constant devotion of forty- 
four years has been to make Brooklyn a nobler, 
lovelier and pleasanter city in which to dwell. He 
has taught us that lesson of implicit faith in her 
capacity and in her future. I think we should 
miss completely the meaning of this gathering — 
those of us who are younger — if we did not take 
from this presence the inspiration of such a faith, 
such a trust, such an absolute belief in the Brook- 
lyn that is to be. [Applause.] 

The Cliaiiman — We had hoped to have the 
Mayoi- with us, but he seut a note stating 
that it was iiupossihle lor liini to be here. We 
are, however, fortuuate in having with us 

4 



50 

General John B. Woodward, the President of 
the Park Commission, whom I now present. 

General Woodward was cordially received. 
He talked as follows: 

SPEECH OF GENERAL WOODWARD. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen— I count it very 
fortunate, indeed, that I am able to be with you 
here to-night to join with you in a personal and 
in some way oi!icial recognition of the services of 
Mr. Stranahan. All of you see the results of his 
labors from the outside. I am fortunately so sit- 
uated that I see much of them from the inside, 
and as I study the annals of the park in the 
office I cannot fail to receive an inspiration for the 
faithful performance of the duties which have been 
temporarily consigned to me. And I want to say 
to you that, from the few months' experience I 
have had there, 1 marvel that any man could have 
remained for twenty-two years performing the ardu- 
ous and vexatious duties devolved upon the office. 
I know something of what I say when I assure 
you that the cranks and persons who come to offer 
advice are a troublesome lot. [Laughter.] 

If you could go forward as you do in your busi- 
ness with a feeling that the citizens of Brooklyn 
had confidence in you when you were placed there, 
and would leave you to perform your duties in 
such way as your best judgment may dictate, the 
path of public officers would be one of roses. As 
it is now, to guard themselves from assault on the 



61 

one luuid and on the other to do only what is 
right, is indeed a task which few men, nnless they 
had the conruge of Mr. Stranahan, wonld hold for 
so many years. The work he has done, if yon will 
consider it for a moment, as shown by the record, 
has been a vast one. The total cost of the park 
has been over 19,000,000, and every dollar has been 
accounted for on the books of the department. 
Then, for twenty-two years he had the annual 
appropriations to look after, varying from $125,000 
to $175,000 — watching all points and guarding 
against the intrusion of the hordes who would like 
to have participated in all that vast sum of 
money. 

It has been told to you that Mr. Stranahan 
came to Brooklyn in 1844. Let me say this : It's 
a great pity he did not come here sooner. I will 
give you a few figures to prove this. Brooklyn has 
in its park area 678 acres of land; New York has 
5,157 ; Philadelphia, 3,000 ; Chicago, 3,000 ; Boston, 
2,000 ; St. Louis, 2,232 ; Baltimore, 770 ; San Fran- 
cisco, 1,181 ; Washington, 1,000 ; Buffalo, 1)00. Of 
these nine cities Brooklyn is at the bottom. W'liore 
would it have been but for Mr. Stranahan ? 
[Applause.] Brooklyn has one acre of park area 
to 1,100 of its people. Imagine 1,100 citizens of 
Brooklyn, if they all wanted to use the park at 
once — 1,100 on one acre. New York has one 
acre to 232 ; Philadelphia, one acre to 282 ; Chicago, 
one to 168 ; Boston, one to 170 ; St. Louis, one 
to 157 ; Baltimore, one to 428 ; San Francisco, one 
to 198 ; Washington, one to 188 ; Buffalo, one 
acre to 178 people; Brooklyn only one acre to 1,100 



52 

people. Now compare Brooklyn with Europe. Lon- 
don has 22,000 acres of parks ; Paris, 58,000 ; 
Berlin, 5,000 ; Vienna, 8,000 ; Tokio, 6,000; Brus- 
sels, 1,000 ; Amsterdam, 800 ; Dublin, 1,000. Brook- 
lyn behind the great cities of Europe. Brooklyn 
has one-fifth of the average of American cities and 
one-ninth of the average of the cities of Europe. 
What would our position have been without Mr. 
Stranahan ? 

Let me say that Mr. H. B. Pierrepont in 1825 
tried to preserve for public uses the ground now 
known as Columbia Heights. He had prejDared at his 
own cost a plan for making a park and submit- 
ted it to the trustees of the village and the parties 
in interest. It was approved, but was defeated by 
the exertions of one individual who had a small 
interest in the property. If Mr. Stranahan had 
come to Brooklyn in 1825 this park on the Heights 
would have been preserved to Brooklyn, and the 
ground between the westerly side of Hicks street 
and the river would have been Iphetonga Park, 
and every citizen of Brooklyn would have been 
as proud to take visitors there as when you go to 
Boston they are to haul you across the Common. 

In 1835 Governor Marcy appointed a commission 
to devise a system of parks for Brooklyn. They 
devoted four years to this work, and in 1839 recom- 
mended eleven sites for parks and squares, John- 
son Square, Lafayette Creen, Bedford Green, Marcy 
Square, Prospect Square, Reid Square, Fulton Square, 
Mount Prospect Square, Tompkins Park, Washing- 
ton Park, City Park. Of these the three latter only 
survive ; and as late even as 18G8 a very deter- 



58 

mined effort was made to cut up Wasliington Park, 
Fort Greene, and sell it off in building lots. Mr. 
Stranahau stopped that. If he had come to Brook- 
lyn in 1835, nine years before he did, these eleven 
parks would have been added to the park area of 
Brooklyn. I 'want to emphasize the fact that when 
Mr. Stranahan took hold of the matter Brooklyn 
got some park area. If he had come here and 
begun that same course in reference to the original 
laying out of Brooklyn, what a different place it 
would have been. Here we have the streets built 
up solid without any public squares, and right here, 
let me say, it has been a matter of great embarrass- 
ment to the Beecher Memorial Committee to find a 
place in the city in which to erect the statue of 
that great man, and it has been forced to go out 
to Prospect Park. Even there tliey suggest the 
removal of the bust of Washington Irving to some 
other place, so that Beecher and Irving may take 
turn about in that position. It niiiy be wise to 
reserve another spot in Prospect Park wliere we can 
erect this statue of Mr. Stranahan, which has been 
suggested, and I know I can assure you that the 
present Park Commissioners will take great pleasure 
in trying to give it a proper and permanent place. 
The Commissioners feel that they have a light 
duty to perform now in respect to the park, as 
their work is mostly that of maintenance. We are 
simply to i)reserve what Mr. Stranahan has pre- 
l)ared. Those of us who remember tiie land as it 
was before he took liold of it cannot but wonder 
that he had such faith in tlie future. Compare 
what it was then with what it is now, and it must 



54 

be to all of you a source of great happiness and 
glory that this gentleman came to us in 1844. I 
hope that the plan proposed to my fellow Park 
Commissioner (Dr. Storrs) to-night may result in 
something substantial, so that in the future the 
citizens of Brooklyn may have before them the 
faithful likeness of Mr. Stranahan in enduring 
bronze. [Applause.] 

The Chairman next introduced Mr. Waldo 
Hutcbius, of the New York Park Commission. 
Mr. Hutchins was cheered, and having arisen, 
spoke in this way : 

SPEECH OF WALDO HUTCHINS. 

Mr. Chairman— I feel that I am here to-night 
under false pretenses. I came over to shake hands 
with my old friend Mr. Stranahan, whom I have 
known longer than any gentleman in this room, I 
presume. I came over to listen and not to speak. 
You don't expect me to speak of New York. She 
is in an eclipse to-night and our friend Stranahan 
has put her there. What Mr. Stranahan has done 
for Brooklyn has incited us to try to do something 
a little better. You are not only indebted to him 
for your Prospect Park, but I think that the inspira- 
tion coming by him to us has induced us to 
add to our parks something like 4,000 acres within 
the last two years, all of which I think Brooklyn 
is entitled to the credit of, and our friend Mr, 
Stranahan. There is no citizen whom it would 
give me more joy to come and meet and see 



55 

lionored to-night, as Mr. Stranahan has been, than 
himself. It has been said that a man in i)rivate 
life could not do as much as a man in public 
life. I think Mr. Stranahan is an instance of what 
a man in private life can do. And undoubtedly it 
is true that Brooklyn to-day is more indebted to 
him than to any other one individual for its great 
public works which have been undertaken and 
carried through within the last few years, and 
which have made Brooklyn famous the world over. 
Fifteen years ago a man going abroad — even my 
friend Judge McCue — would not register himself as 
coming from Brooklyn, but as coming from New 
York. [Laughter.] Now I am sure he registers 
himself as from the City of Brooklyn and its great 
bridge. Why, any one coming from abroad now 
looks at the great bridge uniting the cities of 
Brooklyn and New York as the first thing to be 
seen and to admire. It is the greatest architectural 
and engineering undertaking that has ever been 
accomplished in the history of the world, and adds 
to the seven wonders of the world, and has become 
the eighth wonder of the world. But it seems to 
me, gentlemen, that we must not overlook in this 
gathering here to-night some qualities which our 
friend Stranahan possesses, which, although they do 
not come under the term of public improvements, 
have a mighty bearing, and which endear him to 
the people of this city more than all else — his gentle 
acts of kindness and his love to his fellow man. 
[Ap})Iause.] 1 would ask you, gentlemen, who ever 
saw him in a passion ? As stern a man as ever 
lived ; decided in his views ; a man whom a child 



56 

could lead, but whom a giant cannot drive. 
[Applause.] There is not a child in the City of 
Brooklyn who does not love him, nor is there an 
adult who does not admire and respect him. And 
it is this which has endeared him to you as much 
as these great public works with which he has 
been connected ; genial in his heart's intercourse 
in life, honest in all his business engagements, 
having but one end in view, the interest, protec- 
tion and advancement of the citizen. 

There is not a tenement house in this city to- 
day not healthier and better for his living here. 
Not a street that is not in better condition than 
it would have been if he had not lived here. I 
think the spirit he has always manifested among the 
citizens of this city, the noble purpose of always 
doing that which was best for his fellow citizens, 
regardless of himself and his own private interests, 
is that which brings you here to-night to do him 
honor. It is too late for me to say much more, 
but as I have been seated here the lines of Leigh 
Hunt have come into my mind and they seem to 
me to have been for our friend Stranahan. At 
any rate, if he did not have him in mind it was 
a man just like him. They are these: 

Abou Ben Adhem (may bis tribe increase) ! 
Awoke one uigbt from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it ricli, and like a lily in bloom, 
An angel writing in a book of gold ; 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head. 
And with a look made of all sweet accord, 



57 



Answer'd, "The names of those who love the Lord." 

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," 

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 

But cheerily still ; and said, "I pray thee, then, 

Write me as one that loves his fellow men." 

The angel wrote and vanish'd. The nc.\t night 

It came again, with a great wakening light, 

And showVl the names whom love of God had bless'd. 

And, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 

The Chairman — We are always anxious to 
know what the press think, and particularly 
what the Eaffle thinks of Brooklyn men and 
events. Brooklyn, indeed, would not be Brook- 
lyn without the Eagle's expression being nightly 
known. We have with us this evening the Hon. 
St. Clair McKelwa}^, tlie Editor of the EagJe, 
who will now addiess you, so you ean tell now 
what he thinks before the account of tliis Dinner 
is reviewed to-morrow. [Applause.] Mr. McKel- 
way was heartily cheered on rising, and spoke 
as follows : 

SPEECH OF MR. ST. CLAIR Mc KELWAY. 

Mr. Presidknt— I sliall not make my remarks so 
long tliis evening as the distance of 150 miles I 
have traversed to-day to participate in the pleasant 
proceedings of to-night. The nientiou of Mr. 
Stranahan has on all sides elicited the statement 
that to think of him is to think of the park, of 
the park from inception to completion, and from 
completion throngh the many years of maintenance in 
whicli it was under his fostering care. I take it that 



58 

the reference which Mr. Stranahan made to those 
legislators who stood in important relations to the 
grant of power to him and his associates, to work 
out the trust committed to their hands, was deliber- 
ately uttered by him. It has been my fortune in 
the last three days of absence from the city, in the 
discharge of official duties for the State, to be asso- 
ciated with one formerly a resident of Brooklyn, who 
was instrumental largely in helping forward the legis- 
lation necessary to the power to acquire and create 
Prospect Park. I refer to the Hon. Henry R. Pier- 
son, formerly of this city [api)lause], now a member 
of the Board of Regents and Cfiancellor of that body. 
It was his privilege to be, while a resident here, the 
President of the Brooklyn Club, the only Club of 
the kind to be compared with this one, and the best 
members of which, with a few exceptions, are mem- 
bers of both organizations. [Laughter.] When Mr. 
Pierson left Brooklyn for larger fields of activity 
that organization gave to him a parting dinner of 
recognition and tribute, which was, I think, up to 
that period, the most significant social ovation in 
the history of our town ; and I can see in the 
faces of certain here present the working of the 
mellow memories of the profound condition of ani- 
mal and of ardent spirits into which they plunged 
on that occasion. [Much laughter.] To-day he bade 
me bear to his friends — and all Brooklynites are his 
friends, as your applauding hands attest — the assur- 
ance of his honor, gratitude and sense of deep 
appreciation of the labors of the guest of this 
evening. [Applause.] I know that I could not be 
original without a contradiction of Solomon, who 



59 

said, " There is nothing new under the sun ;" and 
I would be more than liunian could I add any- 
thing of novelty or much of value to the accordant 
tributes vvhicli have been heard around this table 
to-night to the career and character of the eminent 
young man [applause] who is our guest upon this 
occasion. 

All this concurrent expression of the worth of Mr. 
Stranahan in the forty-four years of his residence 
in Brooklyn — which numbers more years than I 
have been a resident anywhere — involves certain 
qualities which have been guardedly, gently, and, in 
some of the speeches, even grandly, suggested. I 
think that a distinguishing trait of our friend is 
his urbanity. His manners of courtly distinction, 
yet of refined simplicity, have always encased him 
like an atmosphere, or radiated from him like a 
solar light. Then, as Dr. Storrs has remarked, is 
that " longanimity " of the man, that long suffer- 
ing and much enduring patience. He has known 
and shown that the best answer of any man to 
calumny and criticism, or misinterpretation of any 
sort, or from any source, is the rounded record of 
a blameless life. He has known and shown that 
vilification is the tribute which malignity and envy 
pay to merit and success. [Tremendous applause.] 

The first time I was ever interviewed in my life 
was when I made an attempt to interview Mr. 
Stranahan. [Laughter and applause.] I remember 
very well he had a red handkerchief. It was an 
orifiamme of more evasive power than the bandana 
of contemporaneous human interest. [Laughter.] I 
lold him what I came for. He told me what I 



60 

was not going to get. lie made me as nnanimous 
as the Park Board under his administration 
[laughter], and when I came back to my chief, he 
said to me, '^ Young man, you are no more of a 
failure than many of your predecessors in the 
same line," [Laughter.] His control of temper has 
been spoken of. Commissioner Hutchins, of the 
lesser Brooklyn [laughter], has said that no man 
ever saw him in a passion. Gentlemen, that is a 
Washingtonian characteristic which I think demands 
special commendation at this time. By it he made 
doubters disciples, opponents allies, and enemies 
friends, and by it he has indicated and vindicated his 
sublime reliance on science, and on time, and on 
the maturing public spirit of this city. [Applause.] 

He has told you that an industry which has had 
its genesis in his brain, and which under the wand 
of his mind, like the earth, sprang from almost 
nothing into beauty, now pays one two-hundredth 
part of the taxes of this city. Is there a man who 
can say of any other institution of equal power I am 
it, and it is I, in this or any other American munici- 
pality, or in an European municipality around the 
globe ? I think not. [Applause.] He has also spoken 
to us in the character of a j^rophet, and predicted the 
consolidation, the eventual union, of these two cities 
by the sea. I am, perhaps, from not unselfish 
reasons, proud of the autonomy of Brooklyn, and 
reverence for our guest does not involve the neces- 
sity of agreeing with all his propositions. I hope 
that never will be the time when Brooklyn shall lose 
her identity and be merged with New York or any 
other municipality. I believe that the genius of 



61 

American statesinanship is manifested in the smaller 
rather than in the larger municipalities. I believe 
that the interests of our people arc enhanced by 
the division and distribution, ratiier than by the 
centralization, of political powers. I want Brooklyn 
to remain Brooklyn, and to develop as Brooklyn in 
all the future. [Applause.] 

One of the speakers to-night, less embarrassed than 
myself, because he came earlier, said he wondered 
whether he was himself or somebody else. Now, sir, 
as there is only one Dr. Storrs, I marvel at his sur- 
prise. [Applause.] As a member of Parliament 
said " Ditto to Mr. Burke," so I would be glad 
to say now "Ditto" to what the leader of the 
American pulpit has advanced here to-night con- 
cerning our eminent guest. I shall not enlarge in 
these remarks upon any further points illustrative of 
Mr. Stranahan's career and character. For age, by 
itself considered, we all have a tender feeling ; but, 
at best, longevity is but sheer and mere duration, 
and it is not necessarily either admirable or impress- 
ive. No number of yards or years of time, 
measured to us off as our own, can constitute dis- 
tinction. To exist is only not to die. To be and 
to do something is to live. It is Mr. Stranahan's 
distinction to have identitied great age with great 
achievements. [Ap})lause.] 

I heartily second the erection in Prospect Park 
of a monument to this great and good man. 
Samuel Findley Breese Morse did not detract by 
anything he did from the monument erected to him 
in his lifetime. William Tecumseh Sherman will 
not detract bv anvthing he shall do from the one 



62 

it is proposed to erect to him in his lifetime in 
tlie City of Washington, which he preserved as the 
capital of an indissoluble union of indestructible 
States. Nor will our honored guest do aught to 
detract from the intention here formed and soon, 
I hope, to be carried into organized effect. 
[Applause.] 

I do not believe that, except in years, he is so 
old as many men I see around me. He has caught 
from nature the secret of perpetual youth. " He 
is the youngest," as Dr. Holmes said on a semi- 
centennial Harvard occasion, "at our board to-night." 
We wish him many long years yet ahead, and 
when the summons which comes to all mortality 
shall come to him, may it then be said of this 
great civic American, as Dr. Storrs once said of 
the greatest President of our own time and annals, 
that " From the topmost achievement of man, a 
life well spent, he stepped to the skies as the gates 
of pearl swang inward at his approach." [Applause.] 

At the conclusion of the applause excited by 
Mr. McKehvay's address, the guests joined in 
singing the verses of " Auld Lang Syne," with 
impressive eflect. The gentlemen then paid 
their parting respects to President Olcott and 
to Mr. Stranahan, after which the memorable 
occasion came to an end. 



63 

The following speech was prepared by S. M. 
Parsons, for delivery at the Stranahan Dinner 
if volunteer speeches had been called for : 

Mr. President — It is singular how difficult it is 
to project and carry out great public improvements. 
It seems to be given only to men of large brain 
and unselfish public spirit to forecast the coming 
needs of a growing people ; and, then, for 'one to 
succeed, he must be a man of energy, and jiluck, 
and of iron determination, with an undoubting faith 
in himself. He will be a target for ridicule and 
misrepresentation, and, without a sublime confidence 
in himself and his measures, he will succumb. 

I well remember, years ago, meeting that prince 
of men, who honored Brooklyn in her mayoralty 
chair, for one or more terms, the late George Hall. 
It was on the corner of Clinton and Livingston 
streets, and we both were looking at the water 
mains being laid in Clinton street. 

''Why," he said, "the people will not yet believe 
that water is to be introduced into their dwellings, 
although they see the pipes going down under the 
ground. They look upon the whole thing as a huge 
job to gobble up the public money. They have no 
faith that anything will come of it." 

The same incredulity and suspicion marked the 
inception of the park and bridge enterprises, and 
but for the grit and public spirit and wise fore- 
cast of our honored guest and his associates —the 
true prophets and seers of Brooklyn — we should still 
be discussing the propriety and feasibility of those 
two wonderful works. It needs a man of nerve to 
take the bull by the horns, and push, and push, 



64 

no matter who is gored, himself or Others, only that 
he be master of the situation, and progress is made. 
An impalement of himself now and then only lends 
more vigor, and makes that progress the greater. 

We recognize in Mr. Stranahan the man for the 
occasion — the wise projector, the skillful and suc- 
cessful executor ; and it is fitting that his long years 
of service to the people's good, without fee or 
reward, should be acknowledged. 

When triumph has crowned devotion like his, and 
everybody is enjoying its fruits, we are apt to lose 
sight of the great architects of our good fortune. 
The result seems then as a matter of course — a 
necessary evolution, and not a special creation of 
special brain, and energy, and forethought. How 
often appear most simple the processes of a great 
discovery, after it is made ! The falling of an 
apple, the bubbling up of steam from the homely 
tea kettle may prefigure a mighty revolution in 
science and mechanics. 

All honor then to our distinguished guest for the 
part and lot he had in these great matters. 

Ancient Greece and Rome would have perpetuated 

his memory in enduring marble or bronze ; but he 

needs no work of his fellow citizens to send down 

his name to the future ; for they of the present 

generation and their children to the latest day, and 

the visiting strangers, as they enter the gates of 

our beautiful park, and enjoy its charms of field 

and forest and meadow and landscape, will read on 

every tree and green walk and sequestered vale, 

Stranahau fecit, 

"Si queris monumentura, 
Circumspice." 



LETTERS OF REGRET. 



LETTERS OF REGRET. 



The following letters of regret were received: 

[From Mr. B. I). Silliman.] 

56 Clinton Street, / 

Brooklyn, December 4, 1888. i 

Geokge M. Olcott, Esq., President, etc.: 

My Dear Sir: — A disabling cold compels me to decline 
your kind invitation for the 13th inst. It would, 1 need 
hardly say, give me very great pleasure to meet your excellent 
guest and his hospitable hosts, and it is most reluctantly that 
I forego the opportunity of doing so. During the more than 
half a century in which I have enjoyed the acquaintance 
and the friendship of Mr. Stranahan his course — his advance 
in life — has been one of constant, generous and steadily pro- 
gressive usefulness to others and honor to himself. His 
wisdom, his energy and his efficiency have each been very 
remarkable. In their combination they have been conspicu- 
ous and effectual in the development and conduct of the 
chief institution of our city. His name is identified — as 
his memory will be — with all our great public improvements, 
among them the park, the great marine basin, the ferries, 
the bridge, and with our institutions of learning, of art and 
of benevolence. These will be his monuments, llis unchang- 
ing integrity and untiring and generous tidelity to his friends 
have given him a warmly welcome home in all their hearts. 
Again expressing my sincere regret that I cannot enjoy the 
privilege of being with you on the occasion of j'^our recep- 
tion of >[r. Stranahan, I am, dear Mr. President, 
Cordially yours, 

B. D. SILLIMAN. 



68 

[From Mr. Stewart L. Woodford.] 

Hamilton Club, i 

Thursday, December 13. 1888. \ 

My Dear Mr. Strnnnhan : — More tlian I can well tell you 
am I grieved and disappointed that I cannot join our fellow 
townsmen to-night in their tribute of respect and affection to 
yourself. But I must go to New York in fultilhnent of a 
promise made long ago — before this Dinner was arranged. 
May all good health and happiness be yours. 
Faithfully, 

Your friend, 

STEWART L. WOODFORD. 
To the Hon. J. 8. T. Stranahan. 



[From Mr. A. W. Tenney.] 

Evening Po^^t Building, ^ 

206 Broadway, |- 

New York, December 13, 1888. ' 

Hon. J. S. T. Stranauan : 

My Dear Sir : — I fully intended to be present at the Dinner 
so appropriately given you to-night by the Hamilton Club, 
but not being a member of this Club, I find myself unable to 
obtain a seat. I regret exceedingly I cannot unite with the 
citizens of Brooklyn in paying you this well-merited com- 
pliment, but as I cannot, I send you this note conveying 
to you my heartiest felicitations upon this rich occasion of 

your life. 

I trust the last days of your long and useful life may 
be the best, and that the glory of tlie evening may be to 
you brighter and more lasting than was the morning. 
With assurances of high regard, I am, 

Very sincerely yours, 

A. W. TENNEY. 



69 

[From Mr. Frederic A. Ward.] 

161 Remsen Stkeet, i 
Brooklyn, December 7, 1888. j 

^fy Dear Sir : — I greatly regret that a professional engage- 
iiieut at Albany will prevent nu; from I)eing present at the 
Dinner proposed to be given to Mn Stranahan on the 13th inst. 

I am quite in accord with the spirit of the occasion, and 
should delight to join in honoring our distinguished fellow- 
citizen, to whose disinterested and public spirited devotion 
to her interests our city owes so much. 
Very truly yours, 

FREDERIC A. WARD. 
To Wm. B. Kendall, Esq., Chairman, etc. 



[From Mr. Charle.s Pratt.] 

Charles Pratt & Co., \ 

26 Broadway, ■- 

New York, December 4, 1888.^ 

Mr. Wm. B. Kendall, Chairman of Committee Hamilton 
Club, Brooklyn, N. Y. : 

Dear Sir: — I regret very much that the wedding of a 
young friend will ))reveut my attending the Dimier to be given 
in honor of our mutual friend, Mr. J. S. T. Stranahan. If it 
is possible, however, for me to return by half-past ten I shall 
come in, but am afraid I shall not have that pleasure, which 
I very much regret. Should be glad if you will extend to 
Mr. Stranahan my congratulations upon the continuation of 
his good health, and the high honors which his honorable and 
u.seful life entitles him to. 

Regretting my inability to detinitely promise to attend, I 

remain, 

Very truly yours, 

ClIARLKS PRATT. 



70 

[From Mr. James P. Wallace.] 

14 SCHERMERHORN St., 1 

Brooklyn, December 13, 1888. f 

Dear Mr. Orr : — Will you please allow me a suggestion. 
It is generally conceded that Brooklyn is indebted to Hon. 
J. S. T. Stranahan for the best features of Prospect Park and 
Ocean Parkway. 

Except for him it is almost certain the Manhattan Beach 
Railroad would have crossed the Parkway on grade. It is 
quite as certain that the Elevated Railroad would have planted 
its posts in the center of the Parkway, had not the good sense 
and powerful influence of Mr. Stranahan stood in their way. 
And it is positively certain that if Mr. Stranahan was at the 
helm, that splendid drive would be preserved to the public, and 
not be ruined by any railroad corporation. 

My suggestion is that the Dinner party being held at the 
Hamilton Club this evening, start a petition to change the 
name of Ocean Parkway to Boulevard Stranahan, in honor of 
the man to whom Brooklyn is so greatly indebted. 

Napoleon III., in recognition of less distinguished service, 
gave the name of Boulevard Haussman to the finest avenue in 
Paris. Should not Brooklyn do as much in honor of our tirst 
citizen ? 

Respectfully yours, 

JAMES P. WALLACE. 
To Mr. a. E. Orr. 



[From Mr. William G. Low.] 

58 Remsen Street, ) 
December 11, 1888. i^ 
My Dear Mr. Stranahan :— Finding that I shall be unable 
to attend the Dinner in your honor at the Hamilton Club, I 
write to express my appreciation of your public spirit, your 
sagacity, your tenacity of purpose and your foresight, all 
of which have been freely given to the advancement of 
Brooklyn's interests. 
Nor do I fail to appreciate the benignant courtesy with 



71 



which you have treatutl mc, as well as, doubtless, the other men 
of my generation. 

Hoping that for a long time yet you may sojourn among 
us here, I remain with sincere respect, 
Yours truly, 

WILLIAM G. LOW. 
To Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan. 



IFroin Mr. William Pket.J 

Bristow, Peet lie Opdyke, . 

20 Nassau Street, New- York, r 

December 13, 1888. ' 

Dear Sim: — Sadness in my bereavement, in the loss of a 
dear little grandchild, untits niQ for the festivities of this 
evening to do honor to our esteemed friend Hon. Jas. S. T. 
Stranahan, 

It is eminentl}^ proper that th(' oldest Club iu Brooklyn, as 
representing its older residents, shoidd pay their respect to 
one to whose prophetic vision, energetic action and unbounded 
liberality in time, influence and estate, our city is so greatly 
indebted. 

Known to me personally for about forty years and ai)pre- 
ciated as a personal friend, as well as a life-long friend of 
my honored father, now in the l)etter world, I have, per 
haps more than any others, a higher duty to jmy him great 
respect ; especially as the Good Book says : " Thine own 
friend and thy Father's friend forsake not." 

Please make to Mr. Stranahan my apologies for my absence, 
and mj' wishes that for many years he may yet live a noble 
example to coming men of Brooklyn, as he has been for 
many years to their fathers. 

I remain, with great respect, 

WILLIAM PEET. 

To Messrs. Wm. B. Kendall, Wii.tjs L. Ogden, C. S. Van 
Wagoner, George R. Timinhull, Conmiittee. 



PRESS COMMENTS. 



PRESS COMMENTS. 



[From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 14, 1888.] 

THE DINNER TO OUR CHIEF CITIZEN. 
The Eagle to-day reports the merited but remarkable tribute 
to the Hon. James S. T. Straiiahau. tendered last night by 
a representative gathering of his fellow Brooklynites. The 
occasion was a recognition of signal achievement, of magni- 
ficent character, of splendid abilities, and of the fact that the 
chief citizen of this city has passed the eightieth milestone 
on the road of life, his eye uudimmed and his natural force 

not abated. 

Age is a gift of the gods rare enough to mark their capri- 
ciousness, yet, in another sense of comparison, frequent 
enough to make the celebration of it, merely for its own 
sake, not especially impressive. A dullard may outlast his 
century, and, so far as the worid is concerned, may have 
survived his usefulness by as many years as he has been 
born. Oldness, by itself considered, is like largeness, small- 
ness, tallncss or shortness, purely incidental. In it is 
neither excellence nor the reverse. What we do in our 
period is the thing. The resultants of any stewardship are 
the praise or the condemnation of it. If those resultants 
liave been wholly selfish, it may be better for the man that 
he never had been l)orn. If they make for the good of 
kindred, city, commonwealth and country, for the nation 
and for humanity, the man has been a blessing to his time 

and clime. 

Measured by these principles, the gentleman wli.. honored 
the Hamilton Club with his presence last night may be sure of 
the verdict of the minds and of the hearis of Brooklynites 
and of the verdict of history as well. lie has been contem- 
,.,,raue(.us with s..nie of the grandest events in the history 



76 

of tJie world. lie is older than the utilization of steam for 
the purpose of navigation. He was entitled to be a voter 
when the first locomotive started Echo from all her caves. 
The United States had not long shaken off their dependence 
on Great Britain on the land when he was born, and, after 
he was born, they challenged successfully her supremacy 
upon the sea. He has seen the number of our States 
trebled, the area of our territory quadrupled, the birth of 
the telegraph, the discovery of the miraculous telephone, the 
wonder of the phonograph, the knitting of the continents 
into instantaneous unity of thought by the cables, the growth 
of our nation from 6,000,000 to 60,000,000 of people, the 
establishment of the perpetuity of the Union, of the nationality 
of liberty, and of the universality of suffrage on this side 
of the earth. 

The recitation of the marvels of God's working in his 
time could be indefinitely extended, but generalizations, in 
each of which are held myriads of details, will suffice for 
suggestion. In as many of these changes as he has 
been able to affect, his part has not been small. His has 
been a constructive, a creative and a jnophetic life. He 
took part in laying out the first grand line of railway 
which belted the East to the West with bands of iron. He 
was the pioneer in this city by the sea of those enterprises 
which make Brooklyn the entrepot and the depot of the 
commerce of three continents. For long years he poured 
in treasure, labor and faith, taking out nothing from the 
deposit, until at last his hope, his energy and his prescience 
were rewarded, and men saw that he had builded wiser than 
they knew. His relations to the park and to the bridge we 
need not recite, for they are household words in Brooklyn. 
His relation to the cause of Union and of liberty is as 
marked and distinctive as that of any of our citizens, and 
stamps him as a man whose confidence in moral principles 
equals his faith in the material resources of his country and 
in the indomitable capabilities of our citizenship. None of 
the men in the past who have built up the name and the 



77 

fiinu; of Hrooklyn has failed to find him an invaliiable 
counst'lor and an indispensable coadjutor. None of the men 
of the present who have succeeded to the trusts which the 
founders of our city bequeathed has failed to realize that 
in the career and charaeter of James S. T. Stranahan reside 
the indication and the vindication of a municipal patriotism, 
of a municipal statesmanship and of a nuuiicipal spirit which 
honor Brooklyn and which alike typify and account for the 
quality and the degree of our prosperity. 

We do not look upon him as old. In heart, in hope, in 
resilience, he was the youngest at the board last night. He 
has caught from life the secret of living. The Greeks had 
a saying, "Call no man happy until he is dead." They 
had a decree prohibiting the erection of memorials to the 
living. Their theory was that, until the human account was 
closed, something might at any time occur to mar its stately 
proportions or to detract from its symmetrical and exemplary 
character. No such apprehension need be felt about Mr. 
Stranahan. We know that patient, gentle, wise and benignant 
man has a right to happiness in the fact of a life lived for 
others, and that from this table-land of time looking back- 
ward on the past and forward on the future, we can say in 
pride and he can say with confidence, " Whatsoever record 
leaps to light, his never will be shamed." 

The Eagle heartily seconds the proposition started last night 
of a monument in the park to the man who made the park. 
It is fitting that the project should be effected while the 
man is alive to enjoy it, for not only would the fact be a 
deserved and felicitous tribute to him, but it would also be 
a proof of the gratitude and a])preciation felt by Brooklyn 
for her most achieving and her most illustrious citizen, who 
has wrought for her so long and wrought for her in every 
high and helpful department of endeavor so transcendently 
well. 



78 

[From the Brooklyn Standard-Union, December 14, 1888.] 

BROOKLYN'S FIRST CITIZEN. 

It is safe to say that the several hundred thousand people 
of Brooklyn who were not at the Hamilton Club's Dinner 
to Mr. Stranahan last night will partake of " the feast of 
reason and flow of soul" which is served in the Standard- 
Union's report of the proceedings to-day. Mr. Stranahan has 
had a full share of the rough criticism that often falls upon 
public men, but it never swerved him from his purposes, and 
really seems' to have acted upon him as friction upon the 
diamond : it gave him a brighter polish. 

Tenacity has been one of his distinguishing characteristics, 
and if the belief that ultimate success was sure to transform 
censure into praise in the end ever inspired him iu the days 
of his early struggles, it has been abundantly justified in 
later years. 

Rev. Dr. Storrs seems to have touched the point exactly 
when he said that " no man wants to be flattered, but every 
man wants to be appreciated ;" and that Mr. Stranahan 's 
grand life work is now appreciated has been shown to him 
by many a public and private sign before this Club Dinner 
was ever thought of. 

As to that work, it is not easy to say which particular 
branch of it has been of the greatest service to the com- 
munity — the Atlantic Docks, the Parks, or the Bridge. The 
last two were essentially public works, and, therefore, they 
have received the greater share of public attention ; but the 
first, though a private enterprise, was the natural precursor, 
if not progenitor, of the last two, and helped largely to give 
this city the population that made them the necessities they 
are to day. What the city is now it may largely thank him 
for, and no one will now dispute his right to be called "the 
first citizen of Brooklyn." 



79 



[From the Biiooklyn Daily Times, December 11. 1888.] 

J. S. T. STRANAHAN. 

The Hamilton Club honored itself last evening by paying 
tribute to the distinguished services James S. T. Stranahau 
has rendered to Brooklyn. Mr. Stranahau has encountered 
his fair share of criticism and misrepresentation during a 
more than ordinarily long and busy life, but he has survived 
it all, and to-day we doubt if there is one citizen of Brooklyn 
who would not gladly join to do him honor. 

The three great works with which Mr. Stranahan has been 
identified from the beginning, as he stated in his speech 
last night, are the Atlantic Docks, Prospect Park and the 
Bridge. The first of these has had an incalculable influence 
in fixing Brooklyn's position as one of the great seaports 
of the world; the second has had scarcely less influence in 
making Brooklyn attractive as a city of homes; the third 
has given an unparalleled impetus to our growth and has prac- 
tically made the two great metropolitan centers one city. 
It is no small glory to any man to have been conspicuously 
identified with all of these great enterprises. 



[From the New York Sun, December 15, 1888.] 

BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK. 

The citizens of Brooklyn have good reason to hold Mr. 
James S. T. Stranahan in honor, for during more than forty 
years past he has been the leading spirit in every great pro- 
ject for the improvement and development of that now vast 
community. 

When Mr. Stranahan first made his home in Brooklyn, in 
1845, it was a town of only about 50,000 inhabitants, while 
the population of New York was nearly ten times as many. 
At that period, too, it was remarkable for a village-like 
character, even among places of its own size ; and in all 
respects it was a mere satellite of the greater town, with 
comparatively few iniporlaiit industries of its own, anil with 
little public or private enterprise. The inhabited area did not 



80 

extend far from the shores of the East River, and the only 
way of access to it from New York was by ferries with 
accommodations so indiiferent tliat they retarded the growth 
of the community. The tine City Hall was in process of 
erection, but l)esides it there were no public buildings of 
consequence, the city being noted only for the number of its 
churches, all of which were without architectural impor- 
tance. 

In other words, Brooklyn was a very slow place in 1845, 
but Mr. Stranahan at once began to infuse into it his own 
energy, for even then he foresaw that because of its natural 
advantages it was destined to become a vast community. He 
first gave his attention to developing the water front by 
pushing forward the Atlantic Docks to successful completion. 
He was instrumental in improving the ferry facilities. He 
conceived and brought about the establishment of tlie mag- 
nificent Prospect Park, and he was the most strenuous advo- 
cate for building the East River Bridge at a time when the 
project was looked upon as chimerical. There has been no 
wise enterprise for the development of Brooklyn which this 
distinguished citizen has not aided and promoted. 

It was therefore fitting that the leading men of the com- 
munity should unite in giving Mr. Stranahan a Dinner on 
Thursday evening in recognition of his great services to the 
town. On that occasion, although he is now over 80 years 
of age, he spoke with the vigor of youth, and showed that 
the sagacity for which he has been so remarkable during his 
long career as the foremost man in Brooklyn is in no wise 
diminished. 

He has witnessed the growth of Brooklyn from a sleepy 
town of 50,000 inhabitants to a great city of more than 
800,000 population, and yet he rightly foresees that its pro- 
gress has only just begun. To accelerate that progress he is 
convinced that the consolidation of Brooklyn with New 
York is necessary, and that it is inevitable. As he said on 
Thursday night, there is no other reason why the present 
separation should continue than that it actually exists. The 
two communities are one in interest, and their common 



81 

advantage requires that their inuuicipal policy slioulil be the 
same. 

Brooklyn now is as nmch an Integral part of New York 
as Harlem, and with the multiplication of bridges across the 
East River, sure to come in the early future, it will be not 
less closely linked with it. From an economical point of view 
also, as Mr. Stranahan remarked, the maintenance of two muni- 
cipal governments where only one is necessary does not exhibit 
wisdom on the part of the two communities. The cost of 
administration is increased without any corresponding benefit, 
but to the actual disadvantage of both, since both would 
gain by a uniform scheme of development. 

The argument that the greater the community the greater 
the dangers from municipal government under popular suf- 
frage is not sustained by the experience of New York. With 
a population of more than 1,600,000, it is better governed 
now than when it was half the size, and when Brooklyn 
adds 800,000 more the improvement is likely to go on. The 
more important the interests and the more magnificent the pos- 
sil)ilities, the greater will be the incentive for men of dis- 
tinguished administrative ability to take part in numicipal 
affairs. 

The two communities are bound to come together, and may 
Mr. Stranahan live to see the day of the union. 



[From The New York Evening Post, December 1.3, 1888.] 

BROOKLYN'S FIRST CITIZEN. 

COMPLIMENTAKY DiNNER BY THE HAMILTON ClUB — OvEK 

One Hundred of His Fellow Citizens 
TO BE Present. 

A comi)linu'nt is to be paid this evening to a man who 
is often called "Brooklyn's Finst Citizen." He is James S. 
T. Stranahan, and a Dinner is to be given in his honor by 
the Hamilton Club in the Club-house, on the Heights. Mr. 
Stranahan's long and honorable career of more tliaii four- 

6 



82 



score years has just been crowned by his election as a 
Presidential Elector for the Empire State, a position he first 
filled when he aided in the re-election of President Lincoln. 
For over forty years Mr. Stranahan has been identified 
witli the growth of Brooklyn, and the creation of Prospect 
Park and the building of the East River Bridge will be 
indissolubly connected with his name. 

In his long and varied life Mr. Stranahan has followed a 
variety of pursuits and has always enjoyed high honor ; 
and now in a serene old age he enjoys the fruits of a labo- 
rious career, amid the surroundings of competence, in a 
happy home. A school teacher and civil engineer in his 
youth in central New York, when only twenty-five years old 
he founded and built up a flourishing village in Oneida 
County. When thirty years old he represented it in the 
State Assemby. Then, after a short residence in Newark, 
where he promoted railroad interests, he went to Brooklyn 
in 1845. That city, then ten years old, was just feeling a 
new impetus after the panic of 1837, which stopped the 
building of her immense City Hall. Mr. Stranahan saw the 
commercial possibilities of the barren shores of South Brook- 
lyn, and projected the great warehouse system there, now 
known as the Atlantic Docks, which do an immense busi- 
ness. 

The first public honor Mr. Stranahan received was an elec- 
tion as Alderman, and in 1850 he was the Whig candidate for 
Mayor, but was defeated. Four years later, however, he was 
sent to Congress, where he scored an excellent record. 
Returning to Brooklyn, he was made one of the Commis- 
sioners when the Metropolitan Police Board for this city and 
Brooklyn was organized. When the plan of Prospect Park 
was projected he took a deep interest in it, and was made 
President of the Commission from its formation in 1860. 
He held this position until 1882, and the entire sj^stem of 
Prospect Park — by competent authorities declared the finest 
urban park in the country, with its connecting boulevards 
and the Coney Island Race Course— was largely due to his 



83 

fertile l)r:iin and g-uidiug- hand. Meant iine he became deeply 
interested in the ])rojec1ed bridge linking the two great 
cities, taking stock in the enterprise, and when it was made 
a public work taking the position of trustee, which he held 
a dozen years, and succeeding William C. Kingsley as Presi- 
dent of the Trustees. For a third of a century he has been 
identified with the Union Ferry Company, and hardly any 
public matter in Brooklyn has failed to receive hearty sup- 
port at his hands. In the war, as a member of the War 
Fund Committee and in the work of the Sanitary Fair, 
which raised $500,000, he was active and useful. Ilis wife 
has just completed an important work upon the history of 
French painting. 

The invitation which Mr. Stranahan has accepted to dine at 
the Hamilton Club to-night has been extended by such well- 
known Brooklynites as Alexander E. Orr, S. B. Chittenden, 
the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, George M. Olcott, ex-Mayor 
Seth Low, Gen. Alfred C. Barnes, Isaac H. Cary, Gen. 
Benjamin F. Tracy, W. B. Kendall, Willis L. Odgen, and 
Robert B. Woodward. In it they say, "It is the desire of 
your friends, in a simple and unostentatious manner, to 
declare their appreciation of what j^ou have been able to 
accomplish for the welfare of the city in which for so many 
years you have lived an honored and useful life." 

The number who can be accommodated at the tables in 
the Hamilton Club's dining-room is 110, and the applications 
for seats have been so many that the Dinner Committee, 
composed of Messrs. Kendall, Odgen, Van Wagoner and 
Turnbull, have had difficulty in accommodating all who 
desired places. There will be speeches, more or less informal, 
after the coffee is served, for the guests of the evening, 
ex-Mayor Low, Dr. Hall, Gen. Tracy, and others. Notwith- 
standing the fact that he is in his eighty-first j^ear, Mr. 
Stranahan is in the enjoyment of good health, and he pre- 
sided at a i)ul)lic meeting in the late campaign. 



84 



[From the New York Independent, December 20, 1888.] 

The Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, last week, gave a splen- 
did reception to the Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan at a Dinner to 
which he was invited, as the guest of the Club, in commem- 
oration of his "honored and useful life" in that city. Mr. 
Stranahan has been a resident in Brooklyn ever since 1844 ; 
and during this period has made himself a great social power 
of good to that city. He is now one of its oldest inhabitants, 
having just passed his eightieth birthday. He has been in- 
timately identified with three great public enterprises — namely, 
the Atlantic Docks, Prospect Park and the East River Bridge, 
all of which have brought vast benefits to the city, and the 
first two of which are mainly the creations of his brain. It 
was eminently fitting that such a reception should be 
extended to him in the evening of his life, when lengthening 
shadows are pointing so significantly to its close. Mr. Strana- 
han in the speech which he made to the Club, gave a brief 
sketch of the particular enterprises with which he had been 
specially connected, suggesting at its close the expediency of 
consolidating New York City and Brooklyn into one muni- 
cipal corporation. His last words, falling as they did from 
veteran lips and sobered age, which we here reproduce, de- 
serve to be read and pondered throughout the world : 

" I have one more thought, gentlemen, which, as I trust, will not 
be deemed out of place on this occasion. My age forcibly reminds me 
that, with me, the earthly things of which I have spoken to you must 
soon give place to things of a different character and a much higher 
order. It is no secret to you, as it is none to me, that before us lies 
a yawning gulf upon which we must all at last be launched. Religious 
faith, with its anchorages and towers resting upon the solid rock of 
God himself, and that only, can bridge that gulf, and land thought safely 
on the further shore. Such faith is the common necessity of om* race. 
No elevation of intelligence can supersede it or do its work. There is 
no registration for man so exalted, or so rich in the privileges and 
immunities which it secures and guarantees, as the one that places his 
name in the 'Lamb's Book of Life.' May God grant us all a peaceful 
and happy transit from this changing scene to the brighter and better 
world above." 

Mr. Stranahan did honor to himself in paying this appro- 
priate tribute to religious faith as the final resting-place for 
the human soul. All experience proves the truth of his words. 



